


Run Once More

by leoandlancer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Awkwardness, Badass Finn, Friendship, M/M, Pining, Power Couple, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Sniper!Hux, badass poe, emotionally repressed fatheads, kidnap and rescue, rogue!Kylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 11:22:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 72,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7047640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandlancer/pseuds/leoandlancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of the Republic's destruction, General Hux is captured by survivors of the fallen Republic, intent on his public execution. Disgusted by his own actions, but haunted by visions of Hux's torture and death, Kylo Ren defies Snoke's new general and goes after Hux alone. On their own and bristling with mutual animosity, hunted by both Phasma, and the new military force of the Revivalist Authority, Hux is forced to ask for aid from General Organa. However, even with the help of the best pilot in the Resistance and his bodyguard, Hux and Kylo struggle to find a truce amid their history, uncertain future, and growing dependence on each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Kylux Big Bang of 2016 and I really hope you enjoy it! These last two months were a huge effort and an awesome party. Kylux is one of the sweetest, niceness fandoms I've ever found and I'm so happy to be here, and to contribute to it. There will be some minor edits for the first few days after this is posted, and artwork will be added by my incredible and patient artist (who read all of this when it was a huge, unbeta'd hot mess, save them)! I'm quite new at posting my work online, so I really appreciate any positive feedback, it's still so cool that I can put my work up for folks to check out.   
> Very, very, very special thanks to daishar for patiently listening to me freaking out during the planning of this. As well as to teaandcathair for cheering me on and giving me feedback and keeping me steeped in awesome headcannons throughout. And to the long-suffering and very patient windlion, for hunting down grammatical and spelling edits with a baseball bat, and telling me what to keep (soon to be implemented, all spelling and grammar errors are mine right now.)  
> Thank you for reading this, I had a lot of fun writing it. <3

The ship broke open with inexorable force.

Hux watched it through the window of the bridge, calmly dispassionate by sheer force of will. He barked orders, triage for his dying ship racing through his mind, balancing on the pitching deck without fully realizing what he was saying, thinking, doing. He watched the airlocks fail in a series of red lights on the emergency event board above them. Casualty listings were piling up faster than anyone could read them. The officers of the bridge worked with feverish desperation, alarms screaming in their ears, red lights flickering overhead. Nothing they did mattered.

“Boarders! Hostile boarders!” A voice screamed above the rest from a panel.

Out the wide trasparisteel of the bridge, a huge chunk of the Finalizer's bow cracked off entirely and drifted aside. Scraps of the ship, odd bits and pieces floated away. People floated by, arched in death throws or curled in on themselves as they died. And there it was, a little parasite of a corvette roosting smugly in the gaping hole where his ship had been whole and safe a few moments before.

His litany of commands cut off in mid word.

“Kill anyone who comes through that door,” Hux heard his own voice snarl as he turned from the window. It jerked him out of his calm. He didn't remember drawing it, but his blaster was in his hand, and he was finished giving orders.

The boarders died in droves trying to take the bridge, precious air draining from the ship, windows cracking as the internal pressure regulators failed. Hux and his officers stood and killed anyone who came through the door. Hux held the bridge until he was light headed, until his officers were dead or dying, until he didn't have the strength to hold his blaster up.

It took him twenty minutes to die.

~*~*~

It was the third night in a row Kylo woke up screaming. The slash across his face still ached, and they'd told him the wounds on his side and arm had been repaired, but they hurt him. The nightmares of the small, tan coloured girl in the snow tearing him apart had faded. He hadn't screamed when she'd slashed him open in his dreams, hadn't screamed when the droids repaired his skin. But now he sat bolt upright in his bed, shaking and cold. He touched the scar forming slowly on his face, felt sweat on his cool skin and tried to get his breathing under control. There was no way his dreams were anything but dreams. There was no reason it should upset him. They weren't visions. They weren't real. That hadn't happened. It couldn't happen.

Kylo swung his feet to the floor, suddenly feeling sick. His hair was damp with sweat when he shoved his trembling hands through it. There was no reason, he told himself, to be upset.

Starkiller Base had been dead nearly three weeks, and Kylo had only been paying attention to the fall out only when he wanted to enjoy how much it wasn't his problem. He was en route to Snoke, on a small medical ship with a couple of tired, terrified pilots. There was nothing to do but heal, try to meditate, and painstakingly relive the horrible hours before he'd passed out in the snow.

If this ship didn't pick up the pace a little Kylo was going to get out and push.

“Sir.”

A trembling voice roused Kylo slightly. He looked up at the woman standing a respectful distance from his doorway. There was a pool going among the pilots assigned to him, who Kylo Ren was going to kill first. They were laying in odds, money was changing hands. Those who approached him were doing so by the ancient binding obligation of the Short Straw Draw.

It suited him, honestly.

“Well?”

“Sir, we have received a transmission directly from Supreme Leader Snoke. We are altering course and returning to the main fleet, Sir.”

Behind her back, she was twisting her hands together. She'd gotten a bad burn on her arm when she was being evacuated, and it was aching horribly now. He could feel it inside her head.

Kylo pulled his mind back. “Going back, to the fleet we've spent days travelling from, like we forgot our keys?”

“Yes, sir,” The woman's expression didn't flicker.

Kylo's stomach twisted unpleasantly, and he ruthlessly quelled his apprehension. “Why?”

“The Supreme Leader did not see fit to make me privy to that information, Sir.”

“What did he make you privy to then?” Kylo was never going to be able to meditate with this on his mind. He stood up, and the woman quailed slightly.

“Sir,” She went on, rallying like a champion, “only that the Supreme Leader wished for you to rejoin the main fleet until further notice. He,” she hesitated, “did not wish to impart this information to you directly.”

Kylo flexed one hand, knifing into the woman's head. She flinched, and Kylo yanked up the memory of the transmission. It wasn't a lengthy one, and it must have sent the betting pool into a frenzy when they determined who had to share it with Kylo. He checked the odds on the woman's surviving this encounter, and tried to guess how much money had changed hands among the other pilots. She'd put money on herself for either outcome.

Hux's Finalizer crumbling into scrap and pieces.

“Leave,” Kylo said softly.

The woman didn't run, but Kylo wasn't sure if she was actually capable of it now.

Getting drawn back to the main fleet didn't mean there had been a crisis. It didn't have to mean anything. There was no reason, Kylo thought, shoving both hands through his hair, to be upset.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: June 12, 2016 Art added by the amazing and patent Assasyngal (on Tumblr). They are my partner in the KBB and knowing they were going to be reading and adding art for this story was a huge support. <3

By the time they had reached the main fleet again, Kylo had nearly disassembled an entire bulkhead. He was ostensibly looking for non critical parts he could salvage, but had more to do with boredom, and absolutely nothing to do with anxiety. Taking things apart the long way could be oddly soothing. Meditation hadn't been getting him anywhere. Not when he sank into visions of blood under his fingernails, pain in a ring around his neck, bones cracked, bruised and burned and terrified.

He didn't want to dwell on simple nightmares.

The main body of the First Order fleet was huge, crowded close with all shields active. They must have been running on high alert for days, even weeks. The ship's company was exhausted, edgy, hollowed out with fear and dread. Compared to them, Kylo's pilots had been a lively bunch.

 

 

Kylo stood at the head of his little contingent of pilots, feeling amazingly vulnerable without his helmet or mask. The only clothing readily available had been uniforms for junior officers and pilots, and his size made it necessary to mix and match between different ranks, dress or combat uniforms. Standing before the immaculate rows of troopers and their officers who greeted his ship, he felt shabby and conspicuous.

He could see officers study his face then glance hastily up or away. He wished he'd made a new helmet, even a mask.

“The General will see you now sir,” a white-faced officer came to attention before Kylo.

“General Hux isn't the reason for my presence here,” Kylo replied. No need to be anxious.

“General Costa, sir,” the orderly corrected respectfully.

Kylo felt something twist savagely in his gut.

“He will brief you personally on your duties,” the officer's eyes glazed over in terror as he spoke. Apparently he was well aware of the suicidal impression he was giving.

Behind them, Kylo's pilots gave a startled little intake of breath, their well honed sporting-blood rising.

“Will he,” Kylo said quietly, looking down at the young officer. He must have been promoted very, very recently. “I am here on direct orders of Supreme Leader Snoke. Do you suggest I would take orders from those beneath him?”

The officer took a shaking breath, his tired mind scrambling. He gave up. “The general will see you now, sir,” he repeated, taking refuge in what he knew.

Sensible man. “Very well,” Kylo said after a pause in which his pilots stood holding their collective breath. “Take me to Costa.”

“General Costa,” the officer said weakly, “is this way, sir.”

Kylo stepped forward, the troopers in their neat lines turning smartly to salute him as he walked past. His pilots were swept away for debriefing, and to claim their winnings out of whoever had played bookie. The officer at his side was trembling, Kylo realized as they stepped into the main companionway. They walked along crowded corridors of busy people, and there wasn't a single person on this ship who wasn't terrified. Their fear was clawing at the inside of his head.

“What has happened in my absence?”

“The general will brief you, sir,” the officer said in a small voice. A torrent of dread and fear and images out of a nightmare streaked through the officer's mind.

Kylo snapped out, paralysing the boy in mid stride. He didn't have the patience to deal with this tired rabbit of an officer. He raised a hand and pushed into the boy's mind.

He was almost nonverbal with exhaustion, barely able to stay on his feet. Costa had been running what he called a tight ship, but what it meant was two six hour shifts in a standard day; drills, physical exercise, and emergency procedure training and theory of warfare classes outside of that. The officer was twenty two years old, and hadn't slept once since the loss of Starkiller without waking, screaming from nightmares. Everyone was on edge, overcrowded and claustrophobic. The barracks were packed, officers and orderlies and troopers crammed in together, trying to sleep. Someone would wake up screaming every few minutes. People lay perfectly still as they cried. His best friend was in the medical bay, slated for termination following a breakdown. His sweetheart hadn't made it off Starkiller, he should have been with her. Five people he'd gone through the academy with had been on Hux's _Finalizer_ when it went down.

Kylo's breath caught in his throat and he withdrew. The officer flinched and swayed, nearly falling headlong.

Without waiting to find out if the officer kept his feet, Kylo left him and strode on. He was head and shoulders taller than most of the people in the hallway, and people nearly leapt out of his way as he walked. He knew where he had to go.

The door to Costa's war-room was locked, but Kylo didn't bother knocking. He went for his lightsabre, drew it and rammed the blade into the control panel. The door gave a squeak and whine, then shot open, half shut, and sparked pitifully. Kylo powered his sabre down. Soothing as it was to take things apart the hard way, using plasma was deeply satisfying.

“Costa.” Kylo shoved his way into through the half-closed door in a shower of sparks. There was a meeting in progress, Phasma standing battle ready with a blaster in her hands and a table full of very new, very shocked young officers. Kylo ignored them for now.

A tall man, with wide shoulders and a handsome face had just shot to his feet, and glared with more fury than almost anyone else had ever dared to show Kylo. His blond hair was fading at the temples, and he wore full dress uniform. In his surprise, Kylo didn't think he noticed the little dart of enquiry Kylo shot into his head.

There wasn't much there besides drive and pride and flat obedience to Snoke. The merciless, ruthless need to outdo his predecessor ruling everything he did.

“Petty Officer Aun was ordered to escort you,” Costa snapped.

“Where is General Hux?” Kylo spoke over him. He was still moving, walking around the table, closing the distance between himself and this blonde upstart.

“You will speak to me with due respect,” Costa snarled. He came out of his place at the head of the table table like a brawler, fists clenched. “I am your general.”

“I fall under Snoke's authority not-” Kylo began, then heard the incredible sound of Costa cutting him off.

“You,” Costa stabbed a finger in Kylo's direction, slowing his charge to stand before him with his feet apart, “fall under my authority now.”

Kylo stopped. For the space of a breath or two, he stared into Costa's cloudy blue eyes. “Explain yourself,” he managed flatly.

“Supreme Leader Snoke has determined that I am to be your direct superior,” Costa said with savage relish, fury making him petty in this apparent victory over Kylo. “Due to present circumstances, the Supreme Leader had enacted a policy of swift martial aggression. I have the authority,” he said wringing out the word like a lover's name, “to command you, and all the First Order's forces as I see fit.”

Kylo indulged in the image of this man choking to death. There were a few awkward shuffles from around the table. One of the more clear headed officers unobtrusively slid down and out of her seat beside Costa, vanishing under the table. She fetched up casually on the opposite side of the room.

“Where,” Kylo asked again, “is General Hux?”

“No such name will appear on First Order records,” Costa almost stopped the smug little smirk that twisted his face but then apparently didn't bother. “Such a person did not exist.”

“He was stricken,” Kylo supplied, “You took his name off the records.”

Costa smiled like a man reliving a happy memory. “Under the inept and inexperienced guidance of the former General of the First Order, not only was Starkiller base lost, but the Resurgent-class _Finalizer_ was destroyed with colossal casualties.”

Costa looked pleased, studying Kylo's face with hungry intensity. Kylo had stopped breathing, he really wished he'd made another mask.

“Hux was taken, not killed,” Kylo realized. They wouldn't be trying to deny he existed if he was dead. “He's alive.”

“No longer a matter for the First Order. I am in command now, and I have several assignments for you to undertake at once. In your pursuit of the objectives I give you, I will permit nothing but flawless and obedient execution. Do you understand?”

“If you think you can order me to recover Hux,” Kylo started, then stopped, unsure what he was going to follow that up with.

“That name is no longer a matter of First Order concern. No such person has existed here and anyone unfortunate enough to be attached to it will not exist for much longer. Get that through your battered head,” Costa spoke over him, stepped forward, crowding Kylo slightly, squaring his feet as if for a fight.

“I, Kylo Ren, am all you need and all you will focus on. I am aware that formerly you were allowed a certain laxness regarding your incomprehensible disobedience and breaches of order. While you found leniency and indulgence and suffered from a lack of training and authority prior to my promotion, you, as with all my subordinates, will now enjoy a better, stronger, more forceful master. I am the hand of Supreme Leader Snoke, his voice in his absence. You have no need to speak with the Supreme Leader while I am here. He has no need to contact you directly while you're under my command. You will,” Costa finished, his eyes glittering, “obey me.”

Kylo wasn't used to looking up at people, but Costa was actually taller than him. The man had the instincts of a gangster and the sensibility of a prize fighter.

Two more officers near them slipped out of their chairs and disappeared under the table. On the other side of the room, he felt more then saw Phasma shift her grip on her blaster. Kylo's sabre was still in his hand.

His lightsabre cracked to life, and he ran Costa through in one sharp motion.

Phasma reacted, blaster rifle snapping up to her shoulder, but Kylo already had a hand out, trembling with the effort of holding her immobile. Somewhat surprisingly, every single officer present froze as effectively as though they too had been paralysed. Not entirely a loss for intellect then, these new officers.

Costa choked, gasped and gave a short, sharp whine. He suddenly looked boyish, confused and scared in his shock and pain. Kylo lanced ruthlessly into his mind, tearing aside his pride and vanity and all the thoughts that cluttered his useless, overstuffed head. Answers, times, orders of events, debriefs, witnesses, wanted coordinates and reports, Kylo raked through the crowded, dying head until he had what he wanted. He wanted Snoke's words, his orders, wanted to see how he'd been given to this jacked up little scrap of a man.

Kylo watched as Costa's hands trembled and floated uncertainly at his chest, unwilling to touch the crackling red beam where it met with the front of his uniform, but stupidly wanting to pull it out. It was impressive he was still on his feet. He looked down in white faced consternation, his face lit by the red light of the cross guard.

Phasma was shaking. She and Kylo had trained together, he had seen her break out of his hold before. But he was nearly finished with Costa.

“They'll strike your name too,” Kylo whispered, a last, petty little coup-de-grace, and watched as Costa looked up at him in sudden horrified anguish.

In one swift motion, Kylo slashed Costa apart, dropped his hold on Phasma, and spun, his sabre snapping up to deflect the shots she immediately fired. He blocked three shots before the pieces of Costa hit the floor. Phasma was advancing, helmet bent over her blaster sights, cold and fearless. The officers remained frozen, showing admirable survival instinct, and Kylo parried, backing until he was out the sparking, jerking doorway and safely in the hall. He savagely hacked at what was left of the door, saw a piece groan and fall across the opening, and turned to run.

The busy halls were still a mass of people, and Kylo had seconds before a general alarm was raised. Possibly less than that before Phasma was out of the war-room and running him down. He didn't have the time to fight her, and he didn't want to get overwhelmed. He wanted out. The hallway was suddenly far too small, too crowded, too busy. He wanted the cold, clean emptiness of space.

If people had gotten out of his way before, they all but lunged to clear the hallways before him now as he ran back the way he'd come. The general alarm sounded, and Kylo lent forwards into a flat sprint. He skidded slightly, fetching up in the small craft hanger. His medical ship was still there, one of it's pilots standing before a small squad of troopers, gesturing to the ship.

It was a familiar mind, and Kylo lashed out at it without hesitation. The pilot staggered, and turned, shaking as he ran up to her.

“Sir,” she said, her face pale. The woman who'd put equal money on her surviving and dying. She looked up at him, registered the general alarm, and her shoulders drooped in immediate understanding of the situation. No one had put money on an outcome like this.

“Halt, you are to be detained,” one of the troopers, only one, the others apparently having more sense, barked at him.

Kylo spared him a glance, and thrust a hand out towards him. The trooper, and his fellows, shot backwards and fell in a tangle of arms and legs and armour.

“My ship,” Kylo returning his attention to the pilot. He pushed the image into her head.

She winced, and pointed immediately, up and over. Following her gaze, Kylo looked up to see his shutle, with it's huge wings and raptor profile, stored safely on the wall. It was barred in, he noticed with a jolt of panic, the only way it would be released would be by direct order from the command station.

“You,” Kylo began, rounding on the pilot, but she was already running for the command station.

“I know!” she yelled, in a startling show of disrespect. Then went on, quietly enough he wouldn't have heard if he hadn't been riding in her mind, “Anything to see the back of you.”

Kylo turned and ran, jumped up the stairs to the stored ships, reached the ladder and began climbing. He could feel Phasma when she burst into the hangar, with the clatter of a hundred well trained, obedient feet behind her. Kylo reached his ship, blindly punched in his entry code, glanced sourly at the bars securing his shuttle, and dove inside.

The familiarity of the ship hit him almost painfully, and his hands started falling automatically into place; shields up, weapons online, entering verification codes one after another, locking First Order's command out of the system.

Phasma was below, rallying the troopers on standby, getting the anti-aircraft cannons set up. Lines of troopers were already firing on him, his shields whining briefly with each shot they took. With a jolt, he realized the command station had gone into lockdown, noone in or out. With the ship barred to the wall, and without a hold on any mind that could free him, he felt pinned like a butterfly. He had to get his pilot in.

Kylo brought the weapons online, looked with satisfaction at the shining display with full readings for fuel, ammo, and air, and fired into the heart of Phasma's anti-aircraft party. He found the familiar mind of his pilot and saw her crouching in good cover near the command station. Kylo aimed carefully, hesitated, and before he made the conscious decision to re-aim, his hands had fired. He'd moved instinctively, and the entire side of the command station was blown neatly away. He still had a knife-edged presence in the pilot's mind, but the woman was already moving without his ordering her. She jumped over rubble of the ruined wall, fallen officers and began tapping in access codes at the huge main console. The bars holding Kylo's ship snapped back abruptly.

The came free off the wall with a jerk, and Kylo felt a sickening moment of falling before the engines caught and came to life under him. He fired another few shots into Phasma's party, saw his pilot racing across the hangar floor, and slipped out of her mind as she shouted frantic, decisive instructions to her co-pilots.

His ship hit the entrance to the hanger at speed and accelerating. The wings came down as he cleared the cruiser, and Kylo's hands were already moving on their own. Plotting a course, putting in calculations for the jump to hyperspace, keeping the ship's weapons hot. He could hold out, had to hold out, against the barrage the cruisers around him were capable of dishing out. Had to outrun the TIE's when they came for him.

One panting breath later, he tensed, a ship coming out of the hangar at deployment speed, but it was only his little medical transport. Kylo blinked, and watched as it apparently found Kylo, turned so quickly the nearly skidded sideways, and shot off in the exact opposite direction.

Almost surprising himself, he wished those pilots well.

His console beeped at him, and he realized he was actually past the range of the smallest of the cruisers weaponry. They hadn't fired a shot at him, and he was almost halfway through his calculations for the jump to light speed. Kylo was simultaneously sour and grateful for Costa's ineptitude. Had Hux been on the bridge, Kylo would have been dust by now.

Then two of the dorsal cannons fired at him, then two more a beat later Kylo bit his lip and let his hands aim, fire, aim, fire, and kept an eye on the progress of his jump calculations. He nearly bit his tongue as the ship lurched suddenly out from under him, and he fired his laser canons into nothing. He blinked, and watched a cannon blast from the command ship shoot over his head, begin to turn about to dive back towards him, then neatly connect with Kylo's shot. Kylo let out a little huff of relief. It had been a long time since he'd allowed the Force to guide his actions like this.

He took a lesser hit on the wing, and the shields chirped a cautionary note at him. Aim, fire, accelerate, evade. Kylo could really, he reflected, use a co-pilot. His side ached fiercely at the thought.

Another hit on the same wing, and the shield's alarm flat-lined as it died.

Behind him, dozens of TIE fighters were streaming from the hangar's gaping mouth, swarming out and accelerated towards him in a charge. He swore softly; they were far, far faster than he was, and it was luck they hadn't been deployed as soon as he'd arrived on the small craft bay. Kylo lunged across the wide console, flipping the emergency power over to rear facing shields, shot down one cannon blast one handed, and dodged another. A voice began shouting at him out of the communicator, barking out orders that Kylo didn't understand or bother to listen to. He heard a squawk from his controls, realized the command ship's control room was taking remote control of his ship. His stomach dropped in panic, alterations to his course were queued for processing right beside a kill order on his shield generator. Hold his breath, Kylo typed a sequence he didn't know into the computer without looking at it. The take-over attempt died instantly.

His shields gave another squawk as the TIEs gained on him enough to fire, the ship shuddering as some of the shots made it through to the hull.

Six more cannon blasts heading for him. Phasma's voice on the comm now. The first of the TIE fighters shot past him, made their turns, and began racing back towards him, shooting into his unshielded bows.

Kylo saw the course projection calculations click from 99 to 100 percent, and slammed the ship into hyperdrive.

The white lines of stars traced up and past him, and Kylo dropped back in the pilot's seat with a thump. His hands slid off the controls, and for the space of seven or eight breaths, Kylo sat dumbly staring out at the stars streaking quietly past him.

The emergency power beeped at him, and without looking, he reached out, turned off the shields and set the emergency power to charge again. While he was at it, he set the weapons to standby, and configured the life support systems to one human. Lastly, he turned the lights off in the cockpit, and sat back, staring up and out at the blue-white blur of lights tracing past him.

Star light glimmered down on him, light from stars already thousands of years behind him. His side ached and his arm was sore and he was breathless and slightly numb.

He'd killed Supreme Leader Snoke's representative. Not just his general. Snoke had withdrawn, limiting his communications, and had put Costa in command of his entire force, in command of Kylo. And Kylo had cut him in half.

He shuddered, and put that thought aside. Costa's mind had been a mess, but it had everything Kylo had been looking for. Coordinates and a description of the vessel that had boarded the Finalizer and taken Hux. History of what had been going on for the last several weeks while Kylo was on that medical transport. Information about where the First Order forces had been deployed. He picked through the information carefully, feeling like he was wading his way through a junk yard. People didn't present their information well when they were about to die.

Hux had been taken almost as soon as he'd fled Starkiller. The attack had come while people had still been scrambling to make sense of the losses of personnel, troops, resources. The Finalizer stuffed with injured or overworked people. Costa's eyes watching the destruction from a neighbouring ship, feeling sick and exhilarated in equal measure.

The only reason they'd strike Hux's name, Kylo had realized, was because he was still alive. If they could disavow him, they could limit the impact he could have on the First Order. If he'd died they would have honoured him.

He rubbed his face. Killed Supreme Leader Snoke's representative. Disregarded his prerogative.

Woken every night screaming.

Watched Hux die.

The stars drew bright lines over his viewport and streaked away behind him. When had he slept last?

The First Order knew exactly where that ship was. Knew where Hux was. Costa's jumbled mind, on the panicked edge of death, tossed up a memory of being a boy, his first time handling a gun at the academy, his fingers too small to reach the trigger. Kylo discarded that, watched the stars streak overhead a while longer. They could have saved Hux at anytime. Instead, the ambitious Costa assumed responsibility and left Hux with no name or history to die alone.

His weeks in the medical transport had been havoc for the First Order. The loss of a general so soon after losing their primary base. They would have lost it anyway, once the star had been devoured. But there had been a plan for that, a contingency. Hux had allowed for the temporary instability before they could reattach Starkiller to a new star.

With so many of their troops and resources lost in the planet's destruction, they had been set back on their heels in a way Kylo hadn't understood until he'd seen the inside of Costa's head. Then it wasn't just the loss of Hux, but the brutality of the attack. A blast of cold white light from the surface of a formerly First Order controlled planet had cleaved the Finalizer apart. The boarders who had stormed the ship had no regard for their own safety. They had died in heaps and none of them seemed to regret that for a moment. A handful of people had survived, locked safely in pods in the medical bay or in their flight suits, in the TIE fighters, but thousands had died, and only Hux had been carried out.

Costa hadn't cared about the people who had taken Hux; he knew they were the last vestige of the Republic, that they had publicly come together to denounce the First Order and the Resistance. They had claimed the Resistance had been too weak, and too timid, and they would take stronger action to crush the First Order. Costa knew they didn't have many numbers, and that their actions showed they had no strong leadership, only fanaticism which would die out. He knew they had limited access to technology and weapons.

Kylo hissed out a breath. The Revivalist Authority had access to Republican technology. Some of the most advanced available. Costa had been an idiot, but it was clear why Snoke had appointed him. When your entire organization was sent reeling from a lightning strike, a man who didn't know it was even raining could be a great comfort.

Coordinates, Costa had known where the ship that had taken Hux was hours ago, and in his haste to get away, Kylo had input the most recent known whereabouts without realizing. He checked the status of the ship, the time before he'd reach his destination, and dropped back into his seat, looking up at the quiet light of the stars streaking out around him. He blinked slowly, suddenly aching with exhaustion.

Then it crept up on him. Kylo felt a familiar weight under his mind, like a swimmer realizing a shark is just below. He let out a whine, struggling to stay up, fighting to stay in the safe, cool, empty cockpit of the ship, but it dragged him down with it's teeth in him. The visions had started coming when he was awake now.

Hux hung like a dead thing immobile and perfectly still, not breathing. He was strapped to a frame with his head sunk on his chest, surrounded by figures in Republican uniforms, bright lights overhead, and the heat of a furnace to one side. Medical droids poised on standby to administer aid and ostensibly, relief. Those in uniform, watching with hunger and delight, drinks in their hands. This was normal for them, some daily divergence.

A droid beeped into life and floated around to face Hux, administered an injection directly into his chest that made Hux flinch. He came to life with a bark of pain, panting and shaking his head, dazed and afraid and bewildered, jerking against the straps that held him spread across the frame.

“The prisoner has recovered sufficiently to continue their scheduled activities,” the droid reported. It drifted back to its counterparts.

Hux was shuddering, hanging by the straps again. He looked smaller, not just thinner, but the half-shredded uniform that hung off his body had lost its shape and purpose, its size only making Hux a shivering body inside it.

One of the men in uniform, short and stocky with brown sideburns, put down his drink and stepped forward, rubbing his hands.

"You'll wear yourself out, Riel," the other officers laughed.

Riel grinned at them, and selected a wicked looking black instrument that crackled with electricity as he held it up to Hux.

Kylo fought, trying to shake off the vision, shrinking away from it. Kylo didn't want to see Hux's bright eyes glaring up at the man through a fringe of dirty red hair. Didn't want to see him scream in pain and fight helplessly against his restraints. Didn't want to see the collar locked into place on Hux's neck or the marks on his skin. Didn't want to see Hux's familiar face white and scruffy with a beard. Kylo didn't want Hux coughing blood or snarling in fury, didn't want to know that there was blood under his nails and cuts on his neck and wrists and ankles from fighting.

Didn't want inside that familiar head to find the order and calm shattered into jagged pieces.

Kylo jerked free, coming to the surface in a rush, nearly choking on second hand pain and fear and fury. He sat panting in the pilot's seat, staring up at the cold lines of the stars around him.

He'd reach Hux's last known location in a few hours.

And then what? Kylo shut his eyes on the stars and covered his face with both hands. His scar felt like it might split him apart.

~*~*~

The ship was small, functional, one of those safe, luxurious corvettes that were capable of travelling forever with a reasonably sized crew that lived in relative comfort. Kylo came out of hyper space and within scanner range of it, and the eight attendant fighters that were acting as guards.

Kylo was close enough he could actually sense where Hux was.

He flicked his weapons array online, put his shields up, and tipped his ship up and around, running the little convoy down. It took him only a few seconds to destroy the eight fighters. Confused and startled, they shot at anything that moved, and with eight against one, Kylo was the odds on favorite to avoid any attention directed at him at all. Three ships were in pieces before Kylo had even gotten off a shot.

The others went down almost as easily, Kylo aiming, firing, piloting the craft, his hands moving on their own, his mind blank with action and reaction. The corvette hold Hux began running, gathering speed on it's way to hyperspace, and Kylo streaked calmly after it, entering a set of coordinates into the console without knowing where they were; a short jump, and the computer raced through the calculations. The transport ship vanished, and Kylo dove after it.

Seconds later, he shot out of hyper speed, nearly on top of the transport ship and found it in company with seven others the same size, the huge bulk of a city of a ship behind it, and over a hundred small fighters.

Kylo swore under his breath. These were the same people that had died by the hundred to capture one man.

But Hux was so, so close.

A squadron of fighters had already locked onto him. Kylo took a breath, knowing without thinking what he had to do. This was the remnants of the Republic, one of their precious evacuation ships, the last of their people.

Kylo armed his entire weapons array, aimed carefully at what looked like the medical bay, and fired everything he had into the fat, open side of the huge city ship.

A wave of anguish, cut off screams and a thousand people's desperation before they died shot through his head and went ignored.

The incoming fighters immediately lost formation, half of them panicking, streaking back to the main ship as pieces of the city tore away. In the confusion that followed, Kylo rammed the corvette, bullying it off course, locking onto it and jamming a boarding hatch against it's hull. The first of the fighters had had remained on target reached him and began firing with furious accuracy. Kylo's shields chirped at him, taking the brunt of a carefully aimed barrage, the fighters unwilling to risk the corvette he'd attached himself to.

Kylo set an automatic course into the controls, set the timer to begin departure, and abandoned his little command shuttle. He jumped to the boarding hatch and dropped down against the hull of the transit ship with his lightsabre drawn. the round curve of the corvette's hull was under his feet, and Kylo rammed the blade through the durasteel. The cross guards flared and whined. Without waiting for the equilibrium to be restored, he dragged the blade along the hull, tightening his grip as the hilt flashed hot under his hands. He shut his eyes briefly, and dragged the blade the rest of the way around the burst of strength that followed the pain lancing up his arms.

He slammed the hull in, jumped after it, and caught four blaster shots on his sabre almost the instant he hit the deck.

The four guards who were waiting for him, all dressed in old Republican dress uniform, looked white faced and terrified, and he didn't have time to pick a fight here. He knocked them back, and lunged past them, felt something heavy hit his arm, ignored it, and made for the door. He hit the airlock seal on the panel to shut it behind him.

The weight was still hanging off his arm, he looked down in surprise to find one of the guards had grabbed him as he made a bid for the door. He raised his blaster and Kylo saw it coming.

The shot froze in the foot of space between the blaster's muzzle and Kylo's face.

Kylo threw the guard down, drove the blade of his sabre through the guard's head into the deck, then released the baster shot into the wall behind him, and ran down the hall. The deck under him rocked as his shuttle's timer reached zero and detached itself from the corvette's hull. Kylo swallowed the sour regret of having to leave it like this, thrust that thought away and ran on.

Guards in their Republican dress uniforms stood to defend the ship, either wonderfully brave or suicidally stupid. They stood before him, with weapons so old they were nearly ceremonial, and died in pieces as Kylo passed them without breaking stride.

He reached the bridge at a dead run, his mismatched First Order uniform flying around him, found three terrified pilots, six guards and two officers, and snapped into a fighting form, his lightsabre whirling up. An alarm let out a cry from the console and one of the pilots lunged for the comm link, barking out a distress call. Seven blasters were suddenly rising to meet him.

He suddenly thought of Hux. Blood under his fingernails, a collar rubbing the pale skin raw and bloody at his neck, Hux's bright eyes wild with pain, blood between his teeth as he screamed.

Kylo bared his teeth and didn't hesitate, but leant into his attacks, moving fast and wild, lunging into killing blows. One pilot died in mid word, talking fast into the comm to a crying girl on the other side. The guards with their old blasters moved too slow, too carefully, they were trained for parades and not for killing.

Out of the viewport before him, he could see his shuttle, moving on autopilot, accelerating towards the bulk of the city ship, approaching ramming speed. Fighter's flocked around it, trying to destroy it before it could ram into the huge, crowded city ship. No one was paying much attention to this corvette and it's little agonies.

He yanked the last terrified pilot out of her seat, cut her in two and dropped into the pilot's seat. He leaned forwards to input a new set of coordinates into the console, checked the life support systems for a manifest list of the crew, a lay-out of the ship and it's appointments, and dove into hyperspace as soon as the calculations hit 100. He didn't see if his shuttle made it's suicide mission to the refugee city on its crash course.

People were barking questions through the comm, orders and demands and a frightened voice tremulously asking why they had jumped to lightspeed. Kylo paused to slash the comm into pieces and turned, running back into the body of the ship.

He didn't have to rush, now that they were in the relative safety of hyperspace, but he still moved through the ship at a run, sweeping from room to room and killing everyone he found. He left the medical droids alone as they began to putter around, going from one corpse to another, as they were endlessly useful for finding survivors.

The accommodations deck was huge,and Kylo hit codes until every door along the hall slid open.

Room after room came up empty, and Kylo was feeling slightly wild. Hux was here, Hux had to be somewhere right here. He slammed into one room, and found someone he recognized. Kylo blinked. Officers dress uniform hanging on the wall, fat hands and bulky shoulders and sideburns, a drink on the little table beside his bunk. The officer Riel, that Kylo had watched, torturing Hux.

Kylo's lightsaber whirled thoughtfully around his hand. The officer blinked up at him, half dressed, propping himself up out of his bunk, sheets trailing off him in a crumpled mess. His mouth was hanging open. Kylo ran his lightsaber through and out the back of his throat, and spent a cathartic few minutes extending himself.

He was panting when he left Riel's room. The corridors were quiet and still. blood on the walls where he'd been. He blinked and pulled himself together. Hux was here. Kylo could find him.

The next two cabins were empty, then the one after that. The next door opened and Kylo stuck his head in for a perfunctory glance around and stopped dead.

He knew, of course he knew, that Hux had been hurt, had been starved and pushed past exhaustion. But Hux wasn't a small man, and Kylo felt shaken to see him look diminished. Lying on the floor on his side, still as death with blood staining his shredded uniform. Kylo barely remembered that this wasn't a problem he could fix with a light sabre. He powered it down as he lunged into the cabin.

“Hux?” Kylo dropped to his knees. Hux was too white, too cold when Kylo touched his face.

Hux didn't move. Even when Kylo gently drew Hux's head into his lap. They'd locked a collar around his neck, a simple, ugly thing, black leather with knife edge spikes and nails driven into it, pointing in. The lock was old fashioned, and Kylo twisted it off with an odd, numb feeling, his fingers easily breaking the metal into pieces and gently drawing the collar free. He slipped a hand under Hux's head to lifted it carefully, the spikes on the inside of the collar were stuck in Hux's skin at the side of his neck, and came free only when Kylo pulled.

Hux groaned softly, then shuddered and subsided with a scowl. Blood began dripping to the floor, trickling over Hux's neck and Kylo's hands.

Wordlessly, Kylo bent his head over Hux's, his dark hair trailing over Hux's face. His hand tightened in the ruined material of Hux's uniform, his other hand gentle on the back of Hux's head.

"I've got you," Kylo whispered.

He heard himself speak before he realized what he said, and jerked back slightly. He'd slaughtered his way onboard. He'd found Hux. That had been enough. He forced himself to stand, turned to leave then paused, disgusted with himself but he stripped off his coat and left it tucked around Hux's still form. Then he ducked back out into the corridor, and sprinted through the quiet ship at a dead run until he found a medical droid. Then he returned to the cabin, shoving the droid before him and hissing instructions.

“Administering medical attention to this individual is forbidden,” the droid said as Kylo shoved it into Hux's cell.

“Are we two the only lifeforms on this vessel?” Kylo asked it, feeling slightly wild. He forced himself not to reach for his sabre.

The droid seemed to consider this. “Yes.”

“Then make sure that count doesn't drop. Treat him,” Kylo said. It had taken a lot of practice, but you had to stay calm when you talked to medical droids, or they just got worked up over your blood pressure and stress levels.

The droid seemed to consider this further. “That is my default prerogative. Reset to default settings?”

“Yes,” Kylo said, hoping for the best.

The droid stayed quite still for a moment, chirped as it rebooted, and then moved instantly to Hux's side. Kylo watched with his heart in his mouth, then felt something barge into his side and scrambled out of the way as five other medical droids began crowding into the room. Hux was suddenly surrounded by a mob of gentle, soft spoken droids, carefully fussing over him, pulling Kylo's coat aside, gently rolling Hux over and scanning his injuries, the remains of his uniform, the conditions he was in. A passive stream of information was burbling up from one of the droids, and Kylo didn't try to keep track of how badly off Hux actually was.

“Take him to the medical bay,” Kylo said at last.

“That room was converted for this individual's daily scheduled activities.” One droid detached itself from the cluster around Hux and came to hover politely before Kylo. “What alternate arrangements would you prefer?”

“Stateroom,” Kylo muttered. Daily scheduled activities. “How long has he been forced to take part in daily scheduled activities?”

“Sixteen standard days,” the medical droid replied promptly.

Kylo glanced at Hux, felt his gut go cold and looked back to the droid, “Take care of him, treat him, heal him, I want updates sent to the bridge as to his condition.”

“Arrangements will be made to have him cared for in the Captain's suite.”

Behind him, the five other droids had already lifted Hux between them, and were carefully carrying him out into the hallway.

Kylo left before the droids could, stepping over bodies and through cooling blood without thinking until he dropped into the pilot's chair in the quiet bridge.

He still had the collar clenched in his hand. Rough leather, rusty, bloody spikes on the inside, buckled on too tight and locked in place. Sixteen days Hux had been tortured, drugged, kept alive only to feel pain and degradation. Kylo leaned back in the pilot's chair, surrounded by the cooling bodies of the dead pilots, officers and guards, and looked out at the stars streaking past him.


	3. Chapter 3

Hux was knocked off his feet as the speeder stopped, and the doors were thrown open. On his knees, his hands tied behind him, gagged and bloody, Hux looked up through his dirty hair to find a crowd of people craning to get a look at him.

"It's him! It's the First Order General!"

The cry went up from a girl in the front, pointing at him. The roar of approval that rippled out from the cry was enormous. It wasn't just noise it was triumph it was hope and relief and an end to a terror he didn't understand.

His grinning jailors picked him up, one on either side of him, and dragged him out, not letting him get his feet under him, and thrust him out onto the platform above the crowd. Hux stumbled, too weak to catch his balance, and dropped onto his knees again. Below him, and on all sides, a mass of people cheered and chanted, sang and danced and held children up to see him.

Hux chewed the bit they'd pushed between his teeth and tried to clear his vision. The collar around his neck dug it's spikes into his skin, and peering through his dirty hair. The last time he'd shaved he'd been aboard the Finalizer on the other side of the galaxy and now his beard was past scruffy, it was aggravatingly full and itchy, and the straps of his gag cut through it to slice at his cheeks.

Someone in a Republic uniform was standing to his right and waving at the people, gestured to Hux, and launched into a speech.

"Good turn out," one of his jailors muttered, giving Hux a kick, "There was a vote you know, democratic selection of your means of execution."

What the hell did that even mean. A tortured prisoner put to death only went one way. Quietly, and quickly, and reduced to ash with the rest of the organic garbage. The voice of the Republican General rang off the buildings around them.

"People came in droves, huge turn out to vote. That," The jailor pointed with care to something behind Hux, "won in a landslide."

Hux looked carefully over his shoulder, and the crowd seemed to quieten as he did so, as thought all these thousand people waited in breathless anticipation for his reaction. Attention was momentarily suspended from the man in his uniform and braid and white gloves bellowing on into the crowd.

Behind him, a post had been erected, a wooden post piled with wood at it's base. The wood was in bundles, and they looked carefully collected, trimmed and tied, each with different string or yarn, as though many diligent hands had undertaken this construction. It looked like a staged scene, like an artist was near by with paper and charcoal making a careful study. Hux wasn't sure why the hell they'd waste the time on someone about to receive a tranquilizer and an injection of air.

"Many hands make light work," the jailor said, smiling. "Kids you orphaned when you destroyed our planet made those beautifully collected little combustables, and we're all going to watch you burn."

The breath caught in Hux's throat. The people here would die while he watched, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time, and he was going to enjoy that.

There was a ripple of satisfaction from the crowd as Hux turned away from the stake.

At least Phasma was here, and the full might of the First Order was coming, ready to fall on this crowd like a hammer. A target like this, an entire city park of Republican Revivalists, their General and staff, it would be a rout of their people. Really it had been clever to wait to rescue him; he knew he could endure their torture, and when they came to rescue him, Kylo and Phasma would crush these last remnants that had troubled them.

The crowd burst into applause, the general in his white gloves waved, and Hux's jailors picked him up, one on either side, and dragged him backwards. He bit into his gag, his arms aching as the jailors hauled him upright, dragging him up the bundles of wood. Hux was looking for Phasma, for the white of the troopers. It was a pleasure to imagine Kylo Ren unleashed into this cheerful, unarmed mob. He would be unstoppable.

Hux gasped and coughed as the gag was unbuckled and torn out of his mouth. He'd been tied to the stake, and his jailor grinned at him one last time. She was a handsome woman nearing middle age, with copper red hair and round nose that had been broken before. She'd been one of his constant companions. She'd tortured him for days on his way here.

"You won't need this," she whispered to him, "We'll like hearing you."

The general was standing under Hux now with a flaming torch in one hand. He looked up, and Hux caught his eye, flat and grey. Hux looked into his death, and the general lit the pyre.

Snoke had sent troops after him. Phasma was here, somewhere. His troopers were here. Kylo Ren would come for him.

The crowd was screaming, the noise all one to Hux, and he coughed as smoke curled around him. The spikes of the collar bit into his neck and he felt fresh blood run down his neck and chest.

People were singing the Republican Anthem. Droids floated through the air, languid and watchful, their optics trained on him, watching and recording the sight of the fire climbing up the stake towards Hux.

Phasma, Kylo, someone was coming for him.

Hux coughed on smoke again, and he jerked involuntarily against the wire around his wrists. Another whoop from the crowd. His head twisted desperately, gasping for breath, and the spikes at his neck dug in deep, making him gasp in a mouthful of hot smoke and cough. More blood ran down his chest and back.

Where the hell were they?

Hux gave a bark of alarm, the heat of the fire below had reached him, and the pain was registered too late on his exhausted body.

Phasma shining at the head of a squadron of white troopers, aiming and firing with cool accuracy. Kylo Ren in the centre of whirling black robes, that red sabre sizzling and howling as it carved through these people. They were here, they had come for him.

Suddenly, without realizing what he was doing, Hux wrenched at his arms in what had to be panic, twisting to free himself. He felt something in his shoulder break, his left arm suddenly a useless agonizing weight.

Stupid, Hux thought, and felt heat lift his hair lightly from around his face. You're about to leave.

Kylo was here. He had to be...

The fire had reached him, licked up his legs and jumped up to his tattered coat, up his arms.

Hux put his head back and screamed.

~*~*~

Kylo sat up with a shout, panting. They were out of hyperspace, all systems offline but the life-support for two. The medical droids had been coming up in turns to give him updates on Hux's condition, and taking a stiffening corpse or two with them as they left. Hux was resting in the stateroom, three droids attending him, and fully expected to recover consciousness in a few hours. In the meantime, Kylo had spent the time since coming out of hyperspace hiding in the ring of some huge planet, watching fighters and scouts zip past them overhead.

They'd been followed out of hyperspace, and Kylo had pounced on the weapons systems as soon as he realized they weren't going to leave hyperspace alone. Their ship was pitifully armed, hardly worth the cost of ammunition, and while the shields were capable of protecting the occupants from a solar flare, dust storm or crash landing, they wouldn't survive under any kind of focused onslaught. He'd skulked immediately into cover, and had been looking up at the stars out the viewport trying to sleep.

He'd gotten to Hux, saved him from torture, gotten him patched up. He didn't deserve these visions anymore.

Another scout scooted past. Republican built, more sophisticated than their fighters, the Republic had been irritatingly invested in exploration and colonization in the last few years. Kylo closed his eyes. For all the good that had done them.

"Guest 04 has regained consciousness," announced a medical droid behind him.

Kylo opened his eyes and turned in his seat. The medical droid was delicately hefting the last corpse left in the bridge into it's arms. It was surprisingly gentle as it peeled the body out of a pool of cold blood, and Kylo wondered who had wasted their time to program that protocol into it. What use was there in a robot being gentle to a corpse?

"Hux," Kylo said, watching as the droid gently closed the wide, stricken eyes of the body in it's arms. "You call him Hux."

"Alterations to data file on Hux formerly Guest 04 have been logged and synced," the droid reported. "Will you sit by his bedside?"

"Of course not," Kylo turned back to the viewport. "Ensure he has everything he needs."

"Arrangements will be made to ensure he is comfortable," the droid duly reported. Kylo didn't hear him go, just stared up at the stars and tried to contain his frustration. Questions were circling under him, catching up to him, he had no answers and no action and no momentum left. Nothing to do but wait for something to happen, wait to be forced to react to something.

Wait to have actual uninterrupted sleep. Without visions of Hux dying, tortured, murdered, hung or burned at a stake. He shut his eyes.

There had to be a limit, he thought, clenching his fists until his hands shook, to what these visions would torture him with.

"Kylo Ren."

Kylo froze, and turned carefully in the pilot's seat.

Hux was dressed in a mix of republican uniforms and civilian clothes, with wet hair, beard trimmed neatly, and a fresh bandage around his neck.

"The droids described the only other life-form on the ship," Hux eased into the bridge, walking carefully and holding one arm over his stomach. He was studying Kylo, his eyes flicking to the scar across his face, "but I will admit to some astonishment."

So will I, Kylo thought mutely, turning back to the viewport and studying the stars.

Hux eased himself, white-faced, into the co pilot's seat beside him.

Kylo didn't have a single thing he wanted to say.

"There were 33 people aboard, prior to your arrival," Hux said after a few minutes. "And the droids are in the process of cremating 19."

"Two escape pods were deployed, before we hit hyper space," Kylo admitted. Something he'd missed until he'd had the time to check the records on the ship's console carefully. "They jettisoned almost as soon as I boarded."

"How did you get onboard?" Hux asked, sounding a little unwilling, like a man who's not sure he really is ready for the answer.

"I cut a hole in the hull."

"You cut a hole in the hull," Hux repeated flatly, "with your sword?"

"Lightsabre, if you can manage the correction, yes."

"From space."

"I put the boarding hatch of my shuttle against their hull and pressurized it." Kylo wasn't sure why he was bothering to explain.

"Your ship, I had your ship put in stocks and locked down on one of the battle cruisers when you were sent off to Snoke."

"I noticed. Pinned to the wall like an insect."

"You got that analogy did you? I liked it too. It was locked in at the command centre. With orders not to release it."

"I forced a pilot to release it."

"The command bridge would have gone into lock down."

"It did. I blew open one wall."

Hux seemed to consider this. "From inside your ship. You opened fire from inside your ship, into a larger ship, which you were also inside, without concern for triggering a situation in which the carrier ship, and your ship, which were inseparable at the time, would blow up."

"Phasma was arming an assault cannon, I was returning fire."

"A preemptive return fire?"

Kylo didn't answer.

"Why was Phasma arming an assault cannon?"

Kylo didn't answer that either.

"Why did I wake up here and not on a First Order medical vessel?"

Kylo bit his lip and stayed quiet.

"Why did I wake up to discover 19 corpses, six medical droids fussing over me with overwhelming care and devotion, and that you are the only living thing onboard?"

Kylo kept his mouth shut and stared at the stars without actually seeing them.

"Under whose authority are you acting?"

Kylo thought about Costa's fat face looking at him in confused anguish before he died.

"I hope force sensitivity allows you to foresee me slamming your ruined face into the console."

It didn't, but Kylo took a breath and said aloud what he'd been trying to avoid for hours.

"I stole my ship and came after you alone, in defiance of direct orders."

It was worse to say it out loud, making it real like that, and it made something sharp and cold settle in his gut.

For the space of several breaths, Kylo and Hux sat side by side in the cockpit, looking out at the stars.

"Supreme Leader Snoke's direct orders," Hux said a little distantly, "were to avoid making efforts to recover me?"

"Snoke's withdrawn, he had left Costa in charge." Kylo's voice sounded strange to his own ears. Again, he wanted to cover his face with a mask. "The scraps left by the Republic's destruction have militarized and they took you, wanted to make a public spectacle of your execution. Snoke disavowed you, and ordered your name stricken from all records."

"So I never existed," Hux said quietly.

The force of Hux's anguish hit Kylo's mental defences like a storm surge. He flinched, surprised at the sudden emotion since Hux was always incredibly hard to read, and looked at Hux in alarm. His profile was perfectly calm, though his mind was a hurricane of anger and disbelief and terror and the horrible, aching knowledge of his own abandonment. Kylo looked abruptly back out at the stars.

Hux had been terrified and brave and he had endured so much, held out against all questioning. He would have gone to his death loyal to Snoke, waiting for rescue. Hux had been waiting for someone, anyone, to come for him. To take him home. Restore him to his position and glory and recognition. Celebrate his bravery.

Instead he got Kylo Ren, 19 corpses and an old Republican corvette hiding in a dust ring.

Kylo took a breath. Caught himself about to reach out to Hux, wanting to touch him, make sure he was real, and gripped the arms of his chair instead. He took a breath and kept talking.

"The spectacle of a First Order general being publicly executed would trigger a rebellion. The Revivalist movement would rapidly expanded out of it's fledgeling remnant force into a militarized insurgency." Kylo knew that this would have happened. Like he knew how Hux would have died. "Snoke and Costa tried to cover up who you were."

"How do you know all this? You were on a medical transport to Snoke."

"I mined Costa's memory."

"Costa was a Captain of the fleet," Hux said distantly, "He was brave, but thought strategy was a ploy used by the weak willed. He was offensively outspoken on the matter."

"He was promoted to replace you."

Hux spent a few seconds in silence apparently wrestling with this new reality. "He was an idiot."

"I killed him."

"You killed Supreme Leader Snoke's representative," Hux said with a slightly hysterical edge to his voice, "his voice to the First Order, the newly declared General Costa, for being an idiot?"

For striking you from all records, for leaving you to die, for knowingly condemning you to torture and death, for ordering me to forget you. "He demanded too much."

"Then you stole a ship and came here," Hux put a hand to his forehead, and winced. In the faint reflection of the two of them in the transparisteel of the viewport, Kylo watched Hux gently touching the new notch through his left eyebrow. It would look like a boxer's injury, when it healed.

If it got the chance to.

"You said you defied him."

"He ordered me to comply to his authority and leave you to torture and execution," Kylo replied sharply, "I did defy him."

"Killing him ranks as the more important of the two acts. Between defy and murder, there's a hierarchy, not a spectrum."

"If you would rather have let things take their course," Kylo said, restless and exasperated and horribly, stupidly let down by Hux's reaction, "It's a little late but I can make up the difference."

"Of course not," Hux snapped. "I'm grateful."

The words came out at the same speed and tone as if he'd rapt out an insult, and Kylo was brought up short before he could reply, slightly breathless.

They sat quietly for a time, the stars turning quietly overhead.

"Thank you," Hux said after a while. The words sounded like they'd been wrung out of him at a cost.

Kylo shut his eyes. The storm of Hux's mind had subsided slightly, his panic and blind, appalled terror at having been discarded so readily. He didn't know how to acknowledge the gratitude. Hux had never offered any before, ever, to anyone, and didn't want to now.

"I don't know what to do," Kylo said instead. He said it quietly, but it still made him a little sick to think about.

"Do you ever?" Hux asked, apparently despite himself. "Why are we hiding in a dust ring?"

"Scouts, fighters, The Republic was tracking the ship when I jumped into hyper-space. Before I could get the tracking systems offline, they were almost on us."

"You didn't make a run for it? Or fight them off?"

Kylo wasn't sure if Hux was genuinely confused or just being snide.

"There's nowhere to go," Kylo said, and the weight of that statement was enough to send them both in to silent stargazing again.

"So," Hux said slowly, after a time, "You killed the General of the First Order, fired on stromtroopers and a Command Station, stole a ship, attacked the Republic refugees, and killed everyone you could find onboard only to have nowhere to go afterwards?" Hux went on coldly.

"Try to recall your gratitude," Kylo replied.

"What an incredible rescue. It's a wonder you're still alive."

Kylo thought briefly of the girl in white and tan, wielding the blue lightsabre, his lightsaber, like it had been light and easy in her hands. He'd been driven back, cut open. The first time he had ever been slowed down, ever been challenged, ever been beaten. He set his teeth and looked at his hands twisted together in his lap.

"Get up."

Kylo tipped his head on his head rest, looking at Hux.

Hux was climbing painfully to his feet, "Get up, I said. I'm flying."

"Where?" Kylo got up, moving to let Hux into the pilot's seat.

"Somewhere," Hux grunted in pain and went white as he settled into the pilot's seat, "We can figure this out."

Kylo slid into the co-pilot's seat and watched Hux reaching for the main controls. He hadn't missed the 'we' in that statement, and it gave him a pathetic little blush of warmth.

"Wait," Kylo snapped.

Hux looked at him, pausing with his hand hovering over the console. Kylo scowled, looked away from him, and up through the viewport. A Republic scout shot overhead, blinking faintly, and Hux let out a breath as it passed away around the curve of the dust ring.

Kylo relaxed and nodded, and looked away. Hux muttered under his breath, brought the ship into life under his hands, and eased up out of hiding, and took off into the stars.


	4. Chapter 4

Kylo stared down at the grey surface of the planet as Hux brought their ship down. 

"Is it just a gas giant?" Kylo asked, watching the surface swirl and twist as he watched. 

"Fog," Hux replied shortly. He was sitting up with a noticeable force of will, and barely managing to keep them steady as they came down. 

They landed with only slightly less grace than Kylo was used to, and Hux sat back in the pilots seat with a grunt. Kylo stood, looking out the view-port at a wall of fog. It was glowing slightly in the light of the neighbouring star, somewhere above them. 

"So you've moved us out of cover in a dust ring, into cover of fog," Kylo said at last. 

"Monitoring station," Hux said, his voice tight. Both his hands were clutching at his side as he sat stiffly. 

Kylo held onto the cuffs of his long sleeves to keep from reaching out to him. "First Order monitoring station will hardly recognize your authority," He said, swallowing his anxiety. 

"It's a Rebellion station, fifty years old," Hux paused and panted briefly. Then he climbed to his feet and swayed, nearly falling back before leaning on the consol before him. 

Hux carefully did not ask for help and Kylo, with equal care, did not offer any. 

"There's a station just ahead," Hux went on as he regained his breath, one hand still clamped to his side. "It's old but still in use. In a sense." 

"A monitoring station that predates the fall of the Empire?" Kylo hesitated then went on, "I cannot imagine how you know about this place, if it exists." He added dubiously, staring a little harder at the fog. He couldn't see the nose of their ship let alone a monitoring station used by the Rebellion prior to the fall of the Empire. 

"It was manned until the Military Disarmament Act. As part of the agreement, it was abandoned. I conducted a sweep of the buildings years ago as part of my training." Hux pushed himself upright with a wince, keeping one hand on his side. "It should serve. You just have to find it." 

Kylo glared at Hux, realized the man was white faced and sweating with pain, and shut his mouth. He gripped the cuffs of his sleeves a little tighter and left the bridge silently. Wandering around in fog to think to find your own feet was preferable to watching Hux support himself upright by pride alone.

Before he could open the ramp doors, one of the medical droids trilled at him, and he turned in exasperation.

Only to be brought up short at it chirped sweetly at him, "Human Designated Human Disaster, you have not eaten since your arrival onboard. Proper nutrition is important to maintain.."

Kylo stopped dead. 

Hux leaving the bridge froze. 

"What did you just call me?" Kylo snapped, staring.

"Human Disaster. Previous designation, Guest 05. Alterations made by Human Designated Hux." 

"Snitch," Hux muttered. 

Kylo turned a flat glare at him, which Hux met with absolutely unruffled coolness. 

"It is important to maintain healthy eating habits during long voyages. If you are experiencing nausea due to motion sickness I am authorized to offer..." The droid went on serenely. 

Kylo reached out and smacked the controls for the ramp open, turned and left Hux with the burbling droid. He'd learned a long time ago, arguing with medical droids only gained you tranquilizers and passively worded cautionary tales about blood pressure. 

He walked straight into the frog, away from the ship, until the world was absolutely silent around him. The air was a silver fog that barely let him see his hand as he stretched it out. It hugged in around him like a physical weight, and grey shapes swirled gently up, became dark and solid and real, then faded away. 

Kylo went for his lightsabre automatically when a huge shaggy beast loomed up before him, but there was no thoughts there, no presence to sense, the the beast vanished in a haze. After that, he caught sight of a TIE fighter in the fog above him, and immediately after, an armed stormtrooper rushing forward. The nose of a huge destroyer came slowly down from the sky as though to crush him as he walked on. Finally, the image of a hooded and cloaked outline in the fine silver fog made him stop cold before it slowly faded. Kyloy was left alone, his heart racing, and he ignored the shapes entirely after that. 

then suddenly, Kylo was standing before a low, grey wall of stone. He blinked, waiting for it to evaporate, but it stayed. It had genuinely been a short, straight walk to the monitoring station from where Hux had put them down. Kylo couldn't help but reflect with some admiration and much more annoyance, that Hux had put them down in a fat blanket of fog, on an unfamiliar planet, on the steps of their objective, with only the teenage memories of his time at the academy to guide him. 

Following the wall around, Kylo found a blast door, cut through it with an effort, and wrenched it aside. He stood back, panting, and let a long tail of fog into the dark hallway beyond.

He explored the small base with his light saber drawn. It had been abandoned in a hurry, and droids had been left to break down or loose charge afterwards. They lay in the hallways or were poised in the act of some maintenence or in mid step all over the building. They glimmered eerily in the red light from his sabre. It's hiss and crackle sounded loud in the silence, it echoed faintly down the long, empty halls. 

He found the barracks, a couple of lost or abandoned shirts and socks, a few datadisks, a holovid that flickered weakly to life when Kylo touched it. The image of a little girl with her curly black hair in a halo around her head, holding a solemn looking, dark eyed toddler in a hug up towards whatever droid had taken the image. They both grinned up at him, flickered, and the image died. 

The sigil of the Starbird was everywhere, even grafittied on the walls in the bathrooms and on the insides of cupboard doors. Kylo avoided them, avoided even touching the winged spire if he could help it. 

He kept exploring through a silent hangar with junked out fighters, a pantry still stocked with non perishable food, a crew mess with plates and cups still on the tables, empty training areas, broken generating stations and an armory stripped of almost everything. Finally, he slashed a door open, cutting a golden starbird in half with some hesitance, and found himself in the command room. It was dark, and shadows jumped and flickered in the light his sabre cast. There was a huge holoring in the centre of the room, banks of fifty year old processors and terminals, and a small maze of chart-boards to one side. 

His mother had been here. 

Her presence shocked him, made him give at the knees slightly before he tried to force it away instinctively. He had practiced ignoring the influence of his mother's presence. He had tried to mastered it. She couldn't trouble him. certainly not from decades ago, when she was a young princess and a fledgeling rebel, uncertain what she would make of her life, how long she would live. She had already lost so much, already seen so many die before her. 

Stop. He didn't want this. Whatever vision was coming, he didn't want it.

Kylo backed out of the command room, his sabre held defensively before him. The vision took him anyway, rising from below him, and for an instant the image of his mother as she must have been filled the inside of his head. The command room bright with lights and busy with action. Glowing chart-boards, shining terminals, people crowding around a read out, pilots in their flight suits clustered around one of the astromech droids. The holoring projecting up a cross section of a huge battle cruiser, and three or four people studying it. His mother in a white gown, regal and solemn and horribly young, gazing up at it with an admiral standing beside her. Her voice in his head, certain and powerful. The people around her listening in rapt attention to her suggestions and assertions. 

Kylo shut his eyes and turned away, panting. He'd covered his face with his free hand. 

He turned and slashed blindly into the wall in one motion. Mindlessly listening to the sabre working, clutching his face with his eyes shut. 

"Human Disaster." 

Kylo froze, and turned slowly to find a medical droid hovering at about head hieight, with a cheerful little flashlight gleaming from it's head. 

"I am Kylo Ren," He snarled forcing himself to lower his hand and his sabre. "Alter your log file." 

"Alterations to log files on personnel cannot be authorized when Medical Droids are disconnected from their home ship network," The droid said, with it's infuriatingly prim, bedside voice. "It has been one standard hour since you departed from the ship." 

"And?" Kylo snapped. 

"And if you're going to be slacking off," Hux's voice came up from around the corner out of sight, echoing slightly. "Spare me the necessity of having to find you." 

"Why did you bring a droid," Kylo fought off his irritation at the interruption, reminding himself that what he was being interrupted from was in fact the vision of his young mother training for an eventful career in armed insurgency. "If you thought you were too weak to make the walk you should have stayed on the ship."

"Your compassion for my injuries and recent ordeal is touching Ren," Hux replied coolly, arriving around the corner. He had a fresh bandage on his neck, and looked slightly better than he had before Kylo left. "However, the droid is here because it can sense life forms, and finding you immediately was preferable to wandering a dead monitoring station in the pitch dark. As it happens," Hux shot a sour look at the wall beside Kylo, still smouldering gently, with fine lines of fire etching into it's face. The hall smelt of burnt rock and mortar. "I could have simply followed the tantrum." 

"Human Disaster has not eaten in at least nineteen..." The droid chirped. 

Kylo snarled and lashed out with his sabre. The droid jerked adroitly out of reach. 

"...Hours, and should take care to nourish themselves shortly." 

Hux stared from Kylo to the droid and back. 

"You missed." 

"It dodged," Kylo snarled, and slashed into the wall with the weight of his shoulder behind it. His shoulder ached immediately.

"If you exert yourself in this manor, you may find your blood pressure rising. Your heartbeat is increasing and..." 

"Shut up," Kylo snarled, stabbing his lightsabre towards it for emphasis, "Do not diagnose." 

The droid shut up, barely a whisker away from the tip of the sabre.

"You missed," Hux said again, apparently stuck on that point. 

"Droids don't have anything to sense," Kylo snapped, turning from Hux, and the smouldering wall. Unfortunately, that left him looking into the empty command room. "Anticipating their ability to dodge is more difficult." 

"The Jedi defeated an droid army," Hux said with quiet incredulity, "They defeated an entire army of droids. Famously." 

"They were battle droids, their movements were programmed and predictable," Kylo snapped, then, annoyed at his rising voice, "I don't have to explain myself to you." 

"You missed," Hux said, falling very nearly into smugness. 

Kylo took a breath. He had learned a long, long time ago why it never paid to attack medical droids. They were hardy things designed to be deployed into war zones. The Republic droids, like this asshole were incredibly advanced. They could preform life saving operations dodging constant enemy fire. He carefully powered down his lightsabre and replaced it at his belt.

Hux waited a beat, apparently wondering if Kylo was going to add any more to his defence, the asked, "What did you find?" 

A vision of my mother in her teenage years, Kylo thought sourly. A little girl and her baby brother. The ensign that meant safety and power and pride before I knew better. "Command centre," Kylo gestured with the sabre. 

Hux passed him and walked carefully around, exploring the equipment inside. The droid followed him, it's little light shinning. 

"Not a total loss then," Hux said. 

"Nothing in there will run," Kylo replied, unsure why he felt inclined to argue on the side of his failing. "There's no power."

"Power won't be a problem, there's auxiliary in here."

Hux was regaining his posture, Kylo noticed, he stood a little straighter in the door of the command room. 

"This place is a wreck," Kylo said bluntly. "They took the powercore before they abandoned the base, the generator's seized." 

"It was intact when I came as a student," Hux, unbelievably, was looking smug about it. "So it was salvaged and alterations to the base were made since I was here in my training. General Organa is very shrewd."

An image of his mother flicked up inside his mind, and Kylo shied from it. He caught himself reaching up to his face, his scar aching. 

He caught Hux watching him, his eyes on Kylo's hand, and turned abruptly. "What exactly do you want to do here Hux?" He said, starting back down the hallway towards the machine shop.

Hux didn't reply, but immediately went to the holoring and began tapping into the control. 

Emergency lights came on in the command room and Kylo blinked around at Hux in surprise. A perfect image of a cross sectioned battle cruiser was projected into the air above the holoring.

"How long," Kylo asked, eyeing the slowly spinning ship as he slowly walked through the command room to join Hux. "Will the auxiliary power last?" 

"Not long," Hux replied. He took a breath. "You know what I'm doing don't you?"

He did. The certainty of Hux's intentions felt like a death sentence. 

"Don't," Kylo said with an effort, watching Hux tapping.

Hux looked up at him, his face lit from below by the console. "I am General Hux of Supreme Leader Snoke's First Order, I am going to ensure that I am put in a position where the remnant threat of the Republic is quashed." 

Kylo thought of Hux at the stake, choking on smoke and screaming as fire engulfed him. He opened his mouth and Hux ignored him, tapped out a sequence on the holoring, paused to read the screen and stood upright. 

"I don't even know if he'll be able to receive it," Hux muttered, the image of the cruiser had winked out when the command had gone through.

Kylo didn't know either, and wasn't sure what to expect. He didn't think Costa had been close to Snoke, but killing a general in a time of crisis was probably not going to endear him to anyone. 

Hux swallowed audibly, the read out was still flashing, requesting connection at regular intervals. Kylo found himself standing side by side with Hux before the reader, his pulse hammering on the side of his neck. 

The read out flashed an error message, the screen went dead, and the lights went out. 

Hux let his breath out in a huff, and Kylo sighed in partial relief, and together they stood with tension slowly draining out of their shoulders. Finally, Kylo turned and headed for a likely looking table piled with datadisks.

"General Hux." 

The voice of Supreme Leader Snoke hit Kylo at the back of the neck and went straight through him. He froze. Behind him, the holoring had activated, and the milky light of a hologram was flickering against that walls. His heart felt caged, and he had a sudden sick, visceral feeling of having tainted this place. He had to get out. Had to get the ship in the air. Snoke knew where they were now. 

He swallowed hard, fighting to quell his panic. Trying to understand why he felt panic at all. Snoke couldn't hurt them. Snoke needed them.

"Supreme Leader," Hux said coolly. "General Hux reporting. I am requesting reassignment. I understand you are lacking a general at present." 

"So you live yet, and free as well. Where have you washed ashore I wonder." 

"Abandoned Rebel base Halation, Supreme Leader." 

"And how have you survived your capture?"

Kylo couldn't wait for what promised to be an incredible fabrication on Hux's part. 

"Kylo Ren was able to steal the ship I was held on, kill my captors, and escape with myself onboard." 

He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Kylo Ren is with you?" 

Kylo's hands were balled into fists, but he turned and stepped back onto the holoreader, side by side with Hux. "I'm here." 

Snoke's hologram was barely three feet tall in the holoring, but he looked as magnanimous and regal as he had a hundred feet tall in Star Killer Base. He shifted slightly as Kylo watched, leaning forward slightly, peering down at them both. His scared face was inscrutable. 

"I have a great many questions for you, Kylo Ren," Snoke growled, "Your training is incomplete. Do you truly wish to be unfinished all your life?" 

"No, Supreme Leader," Kylo replied, keeping his voice low. Panic was still fluttering at the back of his throat, making his breath quick. 

"Then tell me, You have lost much, you committed totally to your course many years ago. Are you ready to redouble your pursuit of your objective?" 

Kylo hesitated. 

He caught a glance Hux shot at him, sharp and confused, and he took a breath and forced himself to speak. 

"Yes, Supreme Leader." 

"Kill Hux. The man has proven himself unworthy. Knows too much. Was placed in power too soon, or should never have been at all. His failures and misdirection have driven us to these difficult times. Kylo Ren, if you wish to return to me to complete your training, cut him down now." 

The words didn't surprise Kylo. They dropped into him, giving ballast to his uncertainty, weighing him down with inevitability. He didn't know he had been expecting the order, but it quelled the panic in his gut, the heavy, cold certainty of his actions replacing it. Kylo gazed up at Snoke, feeling the tightness in his shoulders and face and hands drain out of him.

His hand went to his sabre. This wasn't a fight. He'd known this would happen. He'd been expecting this. He had an objective. He obeyed. 

"He won't," Hux said calmly. 

Snoke's sharp intake of breath, and Kylo's exclamation came out at the same moment and tangled in mid air.

Hux was perfectly composed, the white bandage around his neck shining eerily in the light of the hologram. Kylo stared at him. 

"By killing Costa, escaping from the First Order, finding me and preventing my execution at the hands of the Republican Revivalist, Kylo prevented a surge of anti-First Order sympathy. My death would have weakened the First Order, regardless of my records being stricken, the idea of a general being put to death is more powerful than your deniability. Your refusal to acknowledge me would have made you seem weaker still. How many other officers would you abandon? They would all ask themselves that, and weigh every order you gave them." 

"Enough," Snoke snapped, waving a hand. "Kylo-" 

"Kylo Ren is not under your authority here," Hux's voice cracked out, drowning Snoke's words. The same passion he'd spoken with before the Republic had fallen was in his voice. "You abandoned me," Hux snarled, his voice rising, "To torture and death, weakening yourself to your enemies and your allies, and now, instead of taking the opportunity to regain control of both of us, you gamble both our loyalty on an order that can loose both of us to you and strengthen your opposition? To weaken you, all we have to do is survive outside of your control." 

He went pale when he was angry, Kylo had noticed it before. He was white faced now, his eyes glinting in the milky light. Kylo realized dimly he had turned from Snoke entirely. He was staring at Hux with his mouth slightly open.

"Kylo Ren is mine," Snoke roared back, "He does as I command, my hand where I cannot go." 

"Isn't that what you told Costa?" Hux sneered, "I remember when you told me the same." 

Kylo's hand was still on his sabre. Still staring at Hux. Panic was rising in his throat again. The heavy coldness of certainty was gone, the dread of uncertainty made him sick. Choices hurt him, tore him apart and made him weak. Two futures were snarling and nipping at him for attention and there wasn't time to examine either before he chose. 

"Kylo Ren," Snoke roared, the hologram was flickering, but Kylo was staring at Hux and didn't see Snoke at all. "Kill Hux or face my judgement yourself." 

The red lightsabre cracked into life in his hand, and the milky light of the hologram looked watery in the sharp sizzling light. Black shadows jumped up around the room. Kylo was in a fighting stance, still staring at Hux. 

Hux turned to face Kylo, and red light danced in his bright eyes, glinted on his teeth as he grinned suddenly, as though he'd already won. 

Kylo whirled with a roar, and rammed the blade into the command panel. He wrenched his sabre up with a brute force that made his entire body forget it's pain, and slashed the holoring apart. The hologram flashed and popped out. Snoke's last expression was almost comically shocked.

In the silence that followed, the mild explosion from the holoring sounded slightly sheepish, as though apologetic to be breaking the moment. 

Kylo stood panting, his feet apart, weight held low and squared up to fight with his lightsabre poised at the edge of it's arc, held away from him, his other arm curled to his chest. He'd been knitting a blast of power into his hand, and could feel it dissipating slowly. Beside him, Hux let out a long breath that shook a little. 

"You managed to hit the End Transmission button. Prior to actually cutting the holoring apart." 

With an effort, Kylo slowly straightened and withdrew his sabre. The last of the power in his left hand dissipated with a sting, as he drew himself back up, pulling himself together with a jerk. Without the red light of the sabre, or the hologram, the command room was dark again. A chunk of the holoring flickered weakly and went totally ignored.

Two futures had clawed and howled at the inside of his head as he stood before Snoke and received his order. Now one twisted and vanished, and Kylo was falling away from it into another future. One that included Hux. 

"Kylo," Hux's voice was low in the darkness. 

Kylo heard his own voice then. "Snoke will hunt us both," He realized he'd covered his face again. He pulled his hand away with a jerk and turned to look at Hux.

"You're too dangerous to let live uncontrolled, and I'm an embarrassment," Hux agreed, he was pale, but stiffly held himself at parade attention. "But the opposite is true in both cases."

Kylo looked around as Hux was began moving, crossing the room to the huge battery of old consoles and processors. 

"Ancient," Hux muttered, powering up the first in the line of old consoles. "Trash," he went on as the first of the consoles he tried flickered to life and died. 

"What do you think you're doing?" Kylo watched him, something was making unease knot in his stomach, he wasn't sure where exactly his wariness was coming from now. 

"The heart of First Order controlled space is behind us. But There's a network of First Order ships at the edge of our controlled space. We have to stay out of First Order control," Hux slapped his palm against the second console in frustration as it died in mid start up. He went to the third one. 

"We?" Kylo watched him, his sabre was still in his hand, and Hux had his back to him. Kylo deliberately hooked his sabre to his belt again.

"Neither of us are going to get far alone. Even if Snoke can't send Phasma, or if they're held up after the turmoil you created, Snoke still needs to know we're dead. If we stay inside First Order controlled space, they'll find us, there's nowhere safe to go. If we fly that Republic corvette you stole at the blockade, they'll just hold us there until our execution. Ah," The console under his hand powered up and the screen projected brilliantly into the air before him. Hux tapped at it, slowly at first, navigating through the old Resistance platform. 

Kylo watched silently, he knew that system. He felt his hands curl into fists at his sides.

"And I suppose you have an idea how to hide that republican corvette out there from the First Order?" Something inside him was howling with panic, he felt like he could loose his balance at the slightest interference and fall into nothing. 

"We have to get past the First Order blockade and into outer systems. We need a ship and a pilot that can get us out," Hux straightened, there was a bright screen, oddly new looking projected before him now. Hux hesitated for a moment and hit a green directive in the bottom corner of the screen. "There's a reason I chose this station." 

"I assumed it was luck," Kylo bit out with acerbity, then stopped cold, his breath catching in his throat and nearly choking him. The quality of light had changed when the console made it's connection, and Kylo flinched back, one hand covering his face, half turning away. 

"General Organa," Hux spoke with hard clarity. "My name is General Hux." 

"Formerly," Came the voice of Leia Organa. "I hear you were recently demoted to nonexistent." 

Kylo shoved his face a little deeper into the protection of his hands. 

"That's perfectly true, you're well informed." 

"Interestingly, a surge of interest in our organization has created a flood of helpful informants, among other things. Some recent activity on both our parts seems to have tipped the sympathy in the galaxy." 

"Congratulations," Hux deadpanned. "I," And here Kylo heard Hux hesitate before going on, deliberately choosing his words. "I wish to offer a trade." 

Kylo looked up slowly when his mother didn't reply. On the far wall, one console, one out of ten, was working in perfect order, it's bright screen projected at head height, the face of his mother looking out at Hux. She looked old. The sight jolted him. Of course it had been more than ten years, but she looked old, and tired, and sad. 

Come back with me, we miss you. 

His father gently touching his face as he went over the side of the bridge. The scrabbling of panic and unease became something huge and hungry, tearing at his insides, mindless and desperate. He dug his fingers into his hair, his shoulder hunching up protectively. He couldn't breath.

"You must be in desperate straights." General Organa said flatly. 

"Some activity on your part has changed the fortunes of many," Hux said coolly.

"What do you want?" 

"A pilot and a ship that can take us past the First Order blockade. I know the resistance has been getting through. It's been considerably frustrating at times." Hux spoke with the same deliberate choice of words. Kylo wondered how much this plea was costing him. 

"The blockades are on high alert, and their patrols have been doubled, the Republic Revivalists have been making raids on some of the cargo ships. Ours and First Order." General Organa hesitated. "What are you offering?" 

"Any information you want. Any name, password, system access, shipping route, or safe house. If you get us out of First Order controlled space, I'll give you everything." 

"You can start by telling me how you reached this frequency." 

"I chose a command base formerly used by the Rebellion prior to the fall of the Empire. The power core was taken from the base, rendering it unreadable and totally dead, yet there was still power running to core systems, notably the relay tower. I assumed this base had been converted to a listening station when the Resistance began digging in." 

"Not entirely without sense are you?" 

"Not often," Hux didn't sound smug, but it was a near thing. 

"And lucky. There's thousands of abandoned bases with no power core, used by the resistance in this part of space." 

"Not many that have Leia Organa listed as a former member of their personnel." 

General Organa snorted, "I see," she said quietly. 

There was a pause, and then General Organa's voice was soft when she spoke again, "Ben." 

The name cut through Kylo's terror. He breathed again. 

"What?" Hux sounded thrown, he was offering up everything he knew on the First Order, everything that had made him. The offer being ignored didn't register on any of his contingencies. 

Kylo dragged his hands off his face. Standing this far away, the optic wouldn't see him. He would have been invisible to the woman on the screen. 

Hux was looking back at him in bemusement.

With an effort that made his chest ache with suppressed panic, Kylo took a step, and another, until he was standing by Hux's side, and looked up at his mother. 

"I knew it was you," She said softly. She looked so tired, so sad, and the sharpness in her face that she'd aimed at Hux was blunted now as she stared at him. Studying his face, the scar, his hair and rag-tag uniform, his mother looked like she would crawl through the screen to him if she could. 

"So what," Kylo replied dully. She knew, she had always known, where he was, if he was in pain, if he was tormented. Years of training to block her out and she was still inside him. 

"Are you running? Away from Snoke?" She asked, Hux was apparently forgotten.

Kylo considered this. Snoke would take him back. Even now. But his training under Snoke from now on wouldn't allow him the freedom of thought and action he'd enjoyed until now. He'd be broken by it. 

But it wasn't his only option anymore. 

"Yes," Kylo said. 

Beside him, Hux looked from him to the General of the Resistance and back again, scowling. 

His mother nodded, shut her eyes for a moment as though exhaustion had just claimed her, and swayed slightly. 

Kylo had a sudden, visceral memory of hugging her for the last time. He had already been a head taller than her, and his long arms, uncoordinated and thin, his hands too big for his wrists, had wrapped around her and clung on tightly. She'd pushed her face into his shoulder and he had felt her trembling in his arms. 

"I will ask for volunteers. With the current conflicts going on, this isn't a suicide mission, but that's by a shaved margin. If there is a pilot willing to get you out of First Order controlled space, they'll be dispatched to your location, it'll take a few days to select and equip them. If there are no volunteers, I'll send a list of planet's we've been using as bolt holes. You can hide in one of those until things are a little more capable of being turned to mutual advantage. Await your pilot, or further coordinates to your current location." 

"You haven't made your demands," Hux said, his attention snapping back to the screen. "My offer..." 

"I understand your offer perfectly, General," General Organa said, tearing her eyes off Kylo with an effort to look at Hux with flat black calm. "However you have my son beside you and he's very nearly the only family I have left in the galaxy. So take," she looked back to Kylo and studied his face again, then back to Hux. "Take your offer and fuck with it. Anything you provide will be appreciated by the resistance, but your safety is paramount to my interest as long as you're in my son's immediate vicinity, do you understand?"

Hux was staring at General Organa with his mouth open. 

"General?" Leia asked crisply, shooting her gaze to him again. 

Kylo's hands were balled into fists at his side, it felt like loosing the heat of the sun when she looked away from him. 

"Perfectly," Hux said a little breathlessly. 

"Very well. Await further instructions, do not use this console again unless it's an emergency." 

"Mother," The word came out before Kylo could stop himself. 

"Just survive this," His mother didn't miss a beat. She had always been a woman never short of quick reposts. "No mater what. You're alive, stay that way, everything that maters can wait." 

She studied him, her eyes were clear and steady as they looked at him, exactly as he remembered. He remembered her hand tight around his as he walked beside her in the busy crush of the senate building. He had been allowed to accompany her to the senate until he'd learned to read. Then he'd been left behind.

Kylo nodded. Everything that maters. There was a lot of that, too much. 

"Stick to this one. He wants to live. He'll need someone practical. You were always a pragmatic child, it'll suit," She said brusquely. Kylo remembered her getting more abrupt and succinct as she got to the end of her mission briefs. "And look after my pilot, whoever comes will be a volunteer. If they suffer under either of you, remember that between the First Order and the Revivalists there's still one more faction you can yet make an enemy of." 

"Yes ma'am," Hux said automatically. Kylo, despite himself, suppressed a smirk at the schoolboy reply, his mother had that effect on people. 

"Ben?" 

Kylo focused on his mothers face again. Suddenly, he was hungry for her arms around him, her hand on his head, shushing him and telling him it was alright, alright, everything was alright. 

He couldn't speak. 

"I love you," she said into the silence. "I love you Ben. You live through this, and everything else can be sorted out after that." 

"I'll survive," He whispered. 

"All I can ask," She said, her shoulders came down a little. "Good luck."

She looked slightly down and away, and the screen blinked out of existence. Kylo let out a breath that had apparently been holding him upright. His knees nearly gave out and he lent heavily against the dead console, head down, eyes shut. 

Behind him, and sounding like he was far away, Hux murmured, "The founder, and general, of the Resistance is your mother." 

Kylo shut his eyes. When the hell had he actually eaten last? Or had a sleep that wasn't haunted with dreams of Hux. 

"You found the one in a thousand bases in this part of the galaxy with a direct line to the General of the resistance, landed us in a thick fog at it's very doorstep, contacted Snoke directly from a resistance base, and my mother's identity is the piece of information you missed?" Kylo spoke towards the console under his hands. 

Hux stood beside him for a few momented more as though struggling, then turned and called for the medical droid, and walked stiffly out of the command room. 

What could the future, this ragged existence on the edge of the survival possibilities, possibly hold. In the pitch dark command room, where his mother had trained as a teenager, Kylo Ren shut his eyes. 

~*~*~

The blaster shot caught Hux in the centre of the chest and he fell back without making a sound. It hadn't killed him, or it would, but not immediately. He curled up around himself, trying hold the pieces of his broken body together. The white, organized forms of Stormtroopers all around them. Moving in tandem, shooting with cool detachment, Phasma leading them in, her armour gleaming through the smoke, stalking forward.

He used to love watching them, they were a symbol of his authority, of his power and they had the weight of years of training, programming, of growing up inside a system he led. Now he and those with him would die here, this little planet of glittering jungle and sparkling waterfalls, their ship nearly in pieces around him. Four against an army, led by Phasma. They hadn't had a chance. 

Phasma would know, of course she'd know, that she'd hit him, Phasma wouldn't let that slow her down from making an entire slaughter of them. She'd make sure he was dead before she left, take his body back for verification. Kill the others.

Hux's chest felt heavy and warm, bone fragments making odd shapes under his skin. The pain hadn't hit him yet, his mind was skidding out trying to come up with a plan, an escape route, something to do. He could do something, he had to. He wasn't going to die like this, curled on his side holding his chest together. 

Dimly, he saw their pilot's bodyguard fall from the corner of his eye. From somewhere above him on the remains of the ship, the pilot screamed. It was the agonized sound of a man watching a loved one die. It was cut off sharply, and that was two of them at least who were dead. Hux didn't know where Kylo was, if he was still alive. 

A boot caught him in the shoulder, and shoved him onto his back, the force of it made him realize how weak he was, how little feeling he had in his hands. He opened his eyes, unsure when he'd closed them, and looked up nearly six and a half feet of gleaming chromium armour.

"Captain Phasma," Hux murmured. There was blood in his mouth, on his cheeks and hands, he couldn't breath without more blood and bubbles filling his mouth. 

"General Hux," Phasma replied coolly, "Former." She tipped her rifle down, aimed it at his throat, and fired.


	5. Chapter 5

Kylo lay in an abandoned cabin in the Republican corvette. He hadn't seen Hux anywhere when he'd returned to the ship, just the pestering medical droid. After enduring the frustrating and well meant chatter for a few minutes, Kylo had grabbed some rations and found somewhere to eat it in privacy. The food was surprisingly good quality, with a little sweet for a dessert, and Kylo ate that first, then settled down to eating an entire day's worth of good food.

The previous occupant of the cabin had kept a small collection of star charts on the little shelf beside their bed, and idly, Kylo took one of the shining little marbles and dropped it into the chart reader. The lights went out abruptly, and then the star chart burst into life around him. Universes and stars and planets rushed out in an instant, stopped cold, and then gently began to turn. Kylo lay on his back on rumpled sheets, watching the star chart turn over his head. He didn't know the system, but the cold clean emptiness of space, and perspective, felt like a balm. He felt tiny, and brief, and whatever pain or fear or dread he felt was lost in the huge emptiness around him. 

He shut his eyes. The pain in his side was becoming a familiar ache. He'd been favoring the off side more than he should have. He wondered if the medical droid would check him out, then remembered that he'd instructed them to only pay attention to Hux. 

Blood running down his arms. Hux didn't have the breath to scream in horror as he looked down at his chest and found it torn open. He was turning, the blast to his chest had flung him around and dropped him to his knees. Everything went still for a moment. White pieces of bone were jutting from his stolen uniform. His red hair was catching the sunlight as it hung over his eyes. He looked up through a yawning hole where a massive window should have been and out over a ruined city, a line of hills and a setting sun. White troopers streaming unchecked through the trees, down the hills, they were swarming towards him.

A shining hand clamped over his shoulder, like the bite of a huge creature. 

"Found you." 

Hux looked up, dazed and wide eyed, already feeling cold. He couldn't breath, couldn't feel his arms. He was heavy and cold and tired and Phasma's armor was shining in the light of a huge chandelier that hung from a huge, gloriously domed ceiling. Around him, people were screaming as they died, troopers all around him. Where was Kylo, where were the others, they were here, they had to be, they would survive this. 

Phasma's blaster tipped his chin up slightly as the tip of the barrel rested at his throat. 

"I do have a question." 

Kylo jerked as he opened his eyes. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, or if he'd really been asleep. He was damp with cold sweat and dread felt sick and heavy in his stomach again. 

Hux was silhouetted at the door to the reclaimed cabin, arms crossed. He was whole and safe and breathing and Phasma was far away.

Kylo let out a long breath. The stars and planets and asteroids spun on inside the dark of the cabin, and he sat up among them, rubbing his eyes and ignoring the fine tremor in his arms as he did. 

"Why the hell, of all who could have, did you come for me." 

Kylo stayed perfectly silent. He'd been dreading this question. His answer a sharp little knifeblade in his head. Something he'd been carefully ignoring for a long time. Something he should have been perfectly happy to keep on ignoring. 

"I knew what would happen," Kylo said instead. 

"You mined Costa's memory," Hux clarified. Uninvited, he stalked inside, and dragged the little desk chair out from the wall and over, sitting primly. "But you were ready to kill him and defy orders to come for me before you knew that."

Kylo sat up a little straighter, turning so he could sit cross legged on the narrow bunk, facing Hux. "I saw it in a vision," Kylo went on after Hux sat in perfect silence, waiting him out, damn him. He was never sure where Hux stood when it came to the Force. He'd never spoken against it, or for it, only criticized Kylo's authority and freely took every opportunity to point out his every short coming. 

Hux didn't make any sound or gesture. The stars spun on around them and Kylo reflected how much easier it was to talk when no one could see his face. 

"You were brought to Chitoo Boh, the first of the Republic's colony planets. The Revivalists took it over and it's militarizing. The general of the Revivalists Authority spoke out about the evils of the First Order, the ineffectual cowardice of the Resistance, and gave a call to action. Then they executed you," Kylo said, forcing the words out, choosing them carefully.

Hux let out a breath. They were both quiet for a moment, "You saw me die." 

Kylo thought white bone and blood running freely down Hux's arms. "Many times." He looked away.

Hux looked up slightly, "Explain?" 

"The visions," Kylo watched Hux for any sign of flippancy or disrespect, "Came every time I was asleep," Kylo shifted uneasily, a tight, involuntary motion, leaning forward, as though he would have reached out to Hux if he hadn't stopped himself. Thought of fine red hair lifting in the heat of the fire, blood in his teeth as he screamed.

Hux was quiet for a moment. In the privacy afforded by the relative darkness, Kylo raised one hand slightly. Hux's mind was as carefully warded as ever, precise and neat. The frozen surface of a storm tossed ocean, inscrutable as he almost always was. 

"Every time you slept?" Came Hux's soft voice, startling Kylo out of his unsuccessful mind probe. 

"Or meditated," Kylo pushed himself back, leaning against the wall again. He felt stiff and sore, and wondered how long he'd been asleep. "The visions come when the mind is open. When there's something important at stake."

"That doesn't explain why you came. You've seen many people die," Hux paused then then went on, "Usually at close range while they're begging for their life." 

"Because the call to action was answered." Kylo lied after a moment. 

"You are so poorly suited to deception," Hux said with a low voice. "Especially without your bucket. Don't lie to me." 

Dark or not, Kylo really missed his mask. "I'm not," He spat back. "Costa ignored what the execution would do, thought he could bully through what repercussions that came if you never existed. Snoke..." Kylo stopped himself, something about Snoke's intentions made a little v-shaped ripple to slide over the dark water of his mind. "Snoke had other things on his mind." 

"I know that the call to action would be answered," Hux said impatiently, "I knew it would be when I was taken, it's why I knew Snoke would be forced to recover me. I am a tactician. I worked hard to ensure people knew who I was and how valuable I am to the First Order. I knew that to prevent being weakened by my loss Snoke would be forced to act in my defence." 

Some hot little shard of fury lanced through Kylo's mind, making him start. Hux was sitting placidly, but the quiet of his mind was gone.

"That he would deliberately not act to recover me never crossed my mind," Hux went on after a moment. "I know that to him, I'm as disposable as a trooper is to me. That all his servants are pieces of his will, with nothing to keep them particularly in his thoughts." 

The idea had dawned on Kylo a long time ago. It had taken him years to understand that. To accept his place by Snoke not as an apprentice, but a simple weapon. Hux had apparently come to the same conclusion. But Hux had shielded himself in his own image, his own importance. Where Kylo had simply tried to become a better, more obedient weapon. 

"My point is," Hux said, recovering whatever composure he'd lost at the thought of Snoke's stupidity. "Anyone could have come. You could have made Costa understand. Could have made Phasma understand. Instead, you ran out, stole a ship, broke it out of it's carrier cruiser and made a near suicidal rescue of a man who you could not possibly expect to bring back with your own standing in tatters. So why," Hux said, putting it to Kylo, "Did you come at all." 

Kylo sat with his hands in fists. Why he'd come for Hux. Something Kylo had despaired of long ago. 

"Answer me," Hux said sharply. The words sounded hard in the silence that Kylo was burying himself in. 

Kylo had spent months ignoring that little knife blade of distraction sliding into his head. "You've no authority over me." 

"I'm not asking because I'm entitled to your answer," Hux retorted, "I need to know because you and I are the two most powerful former members of an organization which is desperately trying to recover their stability, and they are hunting us. We are on our own, with maybe a pilot on their way from the Resistance, who might succeed in running us through a suicidal gauntlet so we can begin a life of avoiding a vast and unstable and extremely powerful and far reaching organization which wants us dead or broken." He spoke fast, impatient with Kylo's natural reticence. "I have to know why you're here before I know how to best use you in my plans to survive this." 

"I want out from Snoke," Kylo said. He hadn't planned on saying that. The words had come from his need to get out of this line of questioning and not from any thinking part of his brain. Kylo wasn't sure if Hux believed him.

Hux looked at him with flat insolent disbelief through the dark. "You're just trading Snoke's authority out for mine. As long as we're on the run, you will follow my orders," Hux said after a moment of silence.

"Optimistic of you, General," Kylo said, relishing the small barb. 

Hux bristled, even in the near dark Kylo could see him stiffen. "While I recognize you have foresight I don't, I'm the one..." Hux started, apparently building himself up for a good long rant. 

Kylo cut him off, "Yes, yes, tactical genius over there, sword with occasional boughts of obedience here," Kylo snapped. 

"You're not a weapon," Hux retorted.

Again, Hux's words came out like an insult, and they both sat in silence digesting this surprising assertion. 

Hux took a breath, "You're a warrior," He said carefully. "But if you've been paying attention to this very conversation you will observe that I lack foresight which you possess. If I had had your forewarning, I wouldn't have trusted to Snoke to save me, and could have gotten myself out of the Republicans captivity some other way." 

Kylo didn't ask about that. A man has a lot of time to think about alternatives when he was held for torture. 

"We're going to survive this," Hux said with quiet decision, "But not if I can't rely on you." 

"Rely on me? You," Kylo looked up at Hux sharply, speaking with quiet bitterness he couldn't quiet keep out of his voice, "You despise me. You're demanding my obedience, or at least demanding to rely on me to behave how you want me to, expect me to. But I," Kylo sat up, shifting with a discomfort he couldn't mask. This thought had chewed on him like a beast in his arms. "I have nothing to protect me from you. I have no assurance that you wont discard me at the first opportunity you see to furthering your own interests. How can I possibly rely on you? I'm nothing to you." 

Hux didn't answer him, but sat in the quiet of the star filled cabin, his hands primly on his lap, his head up. In the light of the star chart, the bandage on his neck was a slightly luminescent. 

"You can tell if I'm lying can't you?" Hux asked after a while. 

Kylo shifted uneasily. "No," he admitted.

"You're the chief interrogator," Hux said impatiently, "Of course you can." 

"Was chief interrogator. And if you're asking me why I haven't gotten into your mind and started rooting around," Kylo shot back, "It's generally not a practice I..." 

"Well do it now," Hux snapped. "I need you to trust me. I'm going to be giving you orders. I can't allow for hesitation. There's only the two of us, I don't have anyone else," Hux went on, with a fierce earnestness Kylo had never seen. "Do you understand that? I'm alone. I have you, and I need you to rely on me. You have to understand that I'm giving you orders for your sake as well as mine." 

Kylo hesitated. "You're not easy to read." 

"I was trained," Hux replied shortly. "I've seen you tear people apart from the inside out. You can read me. Do it." 

Hesitantly, Kylo raised one hand, and stretched out into Hux's mind. 

Cold. Ice above and below him. The blue, frozen surface of a frozen, storm tossed sea all around him, waves reaching up high. Abruptly, he dropped through the ice, and down into dark water. He flinched at cold that wasn't real. 

"I told you I was trained," Hux murmured. 

Kylo set his jaw and focused. The pain hit him next, and he gasped. Limbs aching, throat raw, pain in a ring around his neck. Broken bones and electricity burns and missing a neat square of skin from a spot on his chest. The Revivalists had branded him, with crude hot iron, the symbol of the Republic. Hux had made the medical droids cut the burn out. 

"Ignore that," Hux said shortly, his voice tight.

Kylo felt his hand trembling and stilled it with an effort. Pain in Hux's palms again, aching hands, fists clenched in his lap. Kylo took a breath and dropped suddenly down into Hux's memories. A sea of dark water heavy with vast, unstoppable currents. He almost flinched out and away again, took a breath with deliberation, and looked for himself. Irritation and envy and hatred. Kylo let out a breath, disappointed and irritated, and followed that current of thought. 

Suddenly Kylo dropped through into what the envy and hatred had hidden. Terror, and wariness, and Hux's natural competitiveness stalemated by Kylo's abilities. The power of the force was so bewilderingly outside anything Hux could preform. Admiration, and a grudging respect that had turned to a resented, but unshakable awe. 

"This is going straight to your head," Hux's sour mutter came from far away. 

Kylo pushed on. Their entire relationship there and Kylo didn't want to see how badly Hux disliked him, thought of him as a weapon or a tool while Kylo had been dreaming of Hux's impossible smile. The most recent thoughts were there, pain and panic and certainty that Kylo would come for him. And he had, but he'd been alone, and scared, and pathetic in his loss of authority. 

"You need authority," Hux muttered, commentating from the surface above Kylo, "Almost as much as you loath those who hold it." 

Sheer, blinding desperation to hold onto this one point of certainty. That Kylo was safe, Kylo could protect them. That they could make it out of this if they were together. The cold black dread of Kylo's eventual abandonment, for good. If Hux was cast aside by the First Order, then Kylo, Hux would break. 

"Enough," Hux said softly. 

Kylo hung on. 

Hours and hours locked into a frame with nothing but enemies and pain and the waiting. Hux knew that he was going to be rescued, that Kylo and Phasma were coming. That Snoke couldn't afford to loose him. Hours of pain and fear and uncertainty, hours of waiting, holding out, holding on, thinking of Kylo on a murder spree with relish. Hours screaming with nothing but wanting Kylo there, Kylo lashing out to terrorize and kill like Hux never could on his own.

"Kylo, enough." 

Days that had been for nothing. Would have gone to his death for nothing. Alone and abandoned, his life of work and schemes and safety precautions failing as Snoke casually deleted him from all records. Allowed an idiot to take his place, an idiot to order Kylo around. Would have died thinking Kylo and Phasma were on their way, just a little too late, that they would avenge him. 

"Stop." 

Kylo had come for him, Kylo was here. He was safe. 

Kylo gasped, the dark water was suddenly hostile, ice cold and heavy. Hux's thoughts turned around him, lights away in the darkness poised before a huge, wide jaws edged in teeth. He flinched up, breaking out of the frozen surface of a storm's fury, choking on claustrophobia and his and Hux's combined fear.

He opened his eyes with a gasp. His hand jerking away from Hux. 

"I hope," Hux said with forced calm, "That you believe me now?" 

Kylo's hand was over his face again. "You're terrifying," he said without thinking, "Your mind is terrifying." 

"Thank you," Hux replied waspishly. "Look at me." 

With an effort, Kylo pulled his hand away from his face, and looked up as Hux plucked the star chart from it's reader. The lights of the room came up automatically, and Kylo found himself blinking directly into Hux's bright eyes. 

A thousand impossible dreams raced across his mind. They were sitting much closer than he'd realized. 

Kylo took a breath and said, "We're going to get out of this together," Kylo couldn't have broken out of Hux's gaze if he'd tried. "Or not at all." 

Hux seemed to sag slightly with relief. "As I said."

Kylo held out his hand, and after a confused moment, Hux dropped the little marble of a star chart into it. He dropped it back into the chart reader without looking at Hux again. Again the lights faded out and the stars jumped up and out, flashed and stilled, then began to turn. 

"Why the star chart," Hux asked after a moment. 

In some ways, many ways, the new relationship they would have to share would be much harder. Kylo wished he could ignore the question, or offer some brush off answer. Instead he struggled with answers until ne finally managed one. 

"It's empty, and clean and reminds me that the choices of one person can't affect everything. The loss of a person, a family, a ship, even a planet or a star." Kylo gestured to the hundreds of little stars around them. "It won't mater. My choices don't mater." 

Hux rose from his chair and carefully replaced it at the little desk. "Odd," he murmured. "It makes me feel like a god." 

~*~*~

Kylo slept, and ate decent rations, and explored the abandoned base in the next few days. Hux sorted through things Kylo scavenged from the base, allowed the medical droids to treat him every few hours, and recovered rapidly. They found food and a few weapons, clothes and datadisks. They didn't talk much, but played games of Dejarik in the corvette's mess which Kylo found endlessly frustrating. His ability to foresee Hux's move never actually seemed to help.

Kylo was loosing his eighth game in a row when the proximity alarm on the bridge went off, and Kylo ricocheted off Hux as they both lunged through the companionway to the bridge. 

Hux won the brief unintentional scuffle at the door and skidded up to the consol, panting with one hand over his chest. 

"First Order?" Kylo kicked the co-pilot's seat around, dropped into it, and started working his way through the combat interface.

"No," Hux said, "Or, the ship knows something the size of a ship is outside, but can't see it. It could be an animal for all it knows." 

"Resistance," Kylo slowly powered down the array before him. 

"You're sure?" Hux looked at him, switching off the alarm. 

Kylo shrugged. "If it doesn't appear on our scanners, it's a smugglers ship. Turn up the lights, interior and exterior." 

Hux frowned, and Kylo pulled himself upright, not waiting to see if Hux would do as he told him, and hit the access code for the ramp. He reached the white sandy ground as the lights on the ship switched on with a thud. 

It was dark outside the ship now and the pearly grey fog felt cold on his skin, shapes swirling up nightmarish and huge at the edge of the light's radius. A tiny light appeared in the distance, then a black, gaping maw came behind it, and Kylo startled, then had to reattach his sabre to his belt. 

A whistle, slightly muffled by the fog, and then it was two shapes in the darkness, following one light, and Kylo watched two men walk out of the fog towards him. 

Even before they arrived, Kylo knew them, knew them both, and the pit in his stomach twisted and ached in dread. This was a disaster. They reached the edge of the light, stepped forward more slowly, and stopped when Kylo could see their faces. 

There was absolute silence for the space of several breaths. 

"Sure, I'll talk first." Poe Dameron, the best pilot in the Resistance, recovering from torture by Kylo's own hand, shrugged, "I'm used to that now. That's pretty much how we do right?" 

He had a blaster under one arm, carefully within reach. Beside him, the traitor, FN-2187 stood tense, a blaster held with casual proficiency in his hands. He was eyeing Kylo with flat hostility, staring hard at the scar over Kylo's face with apparent relish. 

"Best pilot in the resistance volunteered to run you two out of this part of space," Poe went on. "Finn," and here he stressed the name. "Is here to look after me. Problem with any of that, pretty boy?" 

Even from a distance, even without trying, Kylo could feel the edges of the wound he'd carved into Poe's mind. Poe had been a fighter, and Kylo could torture for hours without leaving marks anyone could see. The traitor, FN-2187, Finn, shifted a little restlessly as Kylo flicked a query of his mind, finding mental defences that made him shy away instantly. He'd been trained, assiduously, while he'd healed. Leia Organa's influence was all over them both.

"Grateful for the rescue," Kylo said after he'd chosen his words carefully. "We're in your hands." 

Behind him, Hux was making his way down the ramp, a medical droid fussing after him.

"Poe Dameron, and his body guard, Finn." Kylo said unnecessarily. Hux, of course, knew all about Dameron and the traitor. 

Hux looked flatly at the two of them. They were both standing in the fog at the edge of the light in similar, if not matching, loose leather jackets and civilian clothes. "The irony isn't lost on us, I assure you," Hux said after a beat. Efforts on the part of everyone present would have, should have, resulted on the deaths of everyone else. 

"You're really running then," Poe said, studying Hux, and the glancing to the medical droid, who was burbling away in the background totally ignored. 

"Yes. We're not sure if Snoke will actively try to kill us right now, but it's likely," Hux silenced the droid with an absent little pat. 

"Oh he is," Poe said, glancing up from the droid. Something seemed to shift in him, and he tugged on the strap of his blaster, sliding it up his back to rest more comfortably. "We received chatter just before we left, General Organa," he glanced at Kylo again. "Asked us to tell you. Snoke's officially declared that you're both targets of opportunity. He's double patrols, scans, he's deployed Captain Phasma to act under her own discretion, and put a bounty on your heads for good measure." 

Hux and Kylo glanced at one another. 

"You guys expecting that? Because it seems like overkill if you ask me." Poe went on. 

Hux shifted slightly, apparently trying to find a stance that didn't make his cracked ribs ache too badly. "It wasn't something I expected, but it's not surprising. Snoke's lost one general, lost his replacement, and now lost Kylo Ren. Not to mention an over crowded battle cruisers and massive casualties. Furthermore, Kylo Ren and I stand in a unique position to humiliate and weaken the First Order by simply surviving. Something that the First Order cannot afford, given it's weakened position. Snoke's withdrawn, hiding himself, but needs a show of strength, needs to have a victory." 

"Well he's not going to get this one," Poe said with perfect poise. "Pack anything you want to bring. And if you have more medical droids, grab them too. We're over here." 

"You hate us both," Kylo said flatly, not moving. "It was luck, and not because I spared an effort when I tried to kill you, that you're still alive. "But you volunteered?" 

Poe glanced at Finn, and then back. "We're gambling our lives on getting you out of Snoke's reach." He said, "And we're the best people to do it, because we have no allusions about who you are or what you can do. And you already know us, and know what we're capable of. This is a chance for the Resistance to get both of you off the board without strengthening the First Order by killing you. And yes, while we're being candid, both Finn and I are terrified of you, and hate you, but we'd much rather know you were on your way out of our sphere of influence, then wait for you to come back into it on Snoke's orbit." 

"You could just kill us here," Hux suggested. "You've got a head start." 

"Tempting," Poe said flatly. 

He spoke with such open admission of yearning that Kylo tensed. Finn shifted, the grip on his blaster tightening automatically. 

"You're the General's son, and if Luke Skywalker is still alive, then you, she and him are the last known members of your bloodline." 

The casual inclusion of Kylo into the Skywalker clan made him blink. 

Poe shrugged. "So even if I thought we could win, I've promised to do everything in my power to keep you both alive. If you kill either of us, you'll be scooped up by First Order, Revivalists, or Resistance for execution or reconditioning. We kill either of you, hell, doubt if a rematch would go our way but if we pulled it off," Poe glanced at Kylo. The edge of his mouth flicked briefly into a snarl. "We loose our home in the Resistance, and whoever we didn't manage to kill is coming after us."

Hux nodded, apparently having come to the same conclusion. Poe was studying the scar across his face, and Kylo really, really wished he'd stopped to get another mask. 

"Finn and I," Poe said, "Will run you out past the blockade. It will take time, but it's not a suicide mission. Only by some bullshit concatenation of bad luck or extensive fuck up on my part are going to lead to not getting through. You two can give info to the resistance, join us, or disappear. We're going home afterwards. That's the plan. We're working together on this, because you two sure as shit know more about what we're up against than even my skills could react to, but you're in our hands, and you don't fuck us over." 

"Very well," Hux nodded, "I've nothing to add." 

Kylo shrugged, and glanced down to find that Hux's hands were balled into fists at his side. 

Poe led them through the fog to where the Resistance ship loomed up like a nightmare before them. 

Kylo noticed that while Poe led them through the fog, Finn stayed carefully behind and a little to one side of them. He was perfectly prepared to fire on both, or either of them, that was clear. Kylo remembered the heavy, visceral drag of his lightsabre carving up the traitor's back, and he knew Finn did too. 

They reached the ship, and Poe tapped out a sequence to the entrance panel, and stood aside as a short, steep ramp came down. The meagre light was enough to light the fog around them, showing the ship in the dimness. 

Kylo and Hux stared up at it for several silent moments.

"I'm amazed it doesn't have wooden planking," Hux said nearly spitting, "You came in this? Intend to run a First Order blockade in this? Braver than I took you for."

Poe grinned back at him, his teeth bared, with the light from the hatch behind him. "Seafarer's made the run across the blockade over thirty times. And I was only piloting her the first five, training the next couple of pilots." 

Hux's gaze snapped from the ship to Poe, "Thirty times. This ship." 

"First Order has blockades up around planets, systems, around their controled space," Poe shrugged, "You ever wonder how we were getting people past you? Ships like this." 

"First Order's a bit quick to decide worth based on conformity," Finn said from behind them, "To their loss." 

Poe grinned at them again. Kylo felt Hux stiffen beside him. 

"You make her look like a trashed ship so she looks like garbage. No one cares about space debris. How did you mask her signals?" Kylo was actually curious about that. Each ship needed an almighty amount of tech to make them navigable in space. 

Poe just shrugged. "Outdated tech where we can, or just go without. They rely on a good pilot. Seafarer can run invisible to most sensors on powercells for her hyperdrive and shields. She has a Quadex power core, but it runs as a generator and it has to be fully powered down and offline if she's to go undetected." 

Kylo wondered how good a pilot had to be to rely on rapidly draining powercells to get them through First Order space. He eyed Poe carefully.

"Well your smuggling success is beginning to make sense," Hux said with a degree of exasperation. Months of his life had gone into working to try and figure out how the hell the Resistance was getting through his hands. 

"We'll get whatever you need from the corvette onboard and then we're heading out," Poe was suppressing a grin, and his gaze flicked to Finn, before he gave a tiny nod. Kylo felt the man behind them relax slightly. "You've got medical droids on there, we'll take at least one with us," He turned and climbed up into the belly of his ship, "We'll probably need them." 

In the end. Poe and Finn took five of the medical droids into the resistance base and put them into standby mode for pick up later. They moved one onto Seafairer and overstocked it with it's fellows supplies. 

"I fully intend on abandoning this ship after scavenging it six way sidelong, and I'm not trashing droids in the process," Poe said stoutly when asked. Kylo and Poe were in the little corvette's bridge, while Hux packed what he'd need, and Finn stood against one wall, playing guard, and glaring at Kylo.

Poe was flat on his back under the console, yanking out pieces he wanted for Seafarer while Kylo powered down each piece as needed. There wasn't much, and what there was, the medical droid they had adopted carried for them, a small crate balanced on it's head. Hux carried a bag of looted uniforms and other clothes, Finn and Poe were both delighted with the rations, and Kylo only took a few things, tucked into the pockets of a pilfered long coat. 

Together, they climbed up into Seafarer, Poe ducked into the cockpit, and Finn showed Kylo and Hux around the little ship. The cockpit was compact, clearly intended for a single pilot and a co-pilot and no one else. There were two gunner stations, one in each of the short little raked wings. There was a tiny mess with a few desultory holovids, datapads of cheap books and an old resistance poster which gave Kylo a jolt when he saw it. His mother's face glaring out at him from twenty years ago on it. The medical droid was peacefully stocking their pilfered supplies into the little medical bay at the stern. There were only two little cabins, each with two bunks. Poe and Finn were sharing one, and the second had been readied for Hux and Kylo.

"You two can share a cabin, right?" Finn asked, watching Kylo and Hux carefully not look at one another.

They left the foggy surface of the planet minutes later. Kylo sat in one of the gunners pods, watching the outline of the old Rebel base fade away into the fog below him, the dark hulk of the abandoned corvette beside it. From the hanging saddle of the gunner's seat in the durapane bubble, Kylo watched as the the fog engulfed the building, then became a pearly white mass, then nothing more then a cloudy little planet receding into space.

"Kylo, Hux, we're making the jump to lightspeed in a few seconds," Poe's voice came from the head set Kylo hadn't bothered to put on when he'd swung down into the gunner's saddle. "Hold on, once we're in the jump, come to the mess if you want food." 

Kylo idly swung himself around to face forward, turning his back of the little milky white surface of the planet dwindling to nothing behind them. He looked ahead just as, suddenly, the stars froze where they hung, then streaked away behind him. He sat in the little durapane bubble, watching the stars flashing away behind them. 

"You know it's odd," Hux's voice was in the headset now, and Kylo picked it off it's base and hooked it over one ear. 

"Odd?" He asked, looking out at the lines of stars. 

"I learned the constellations when I was a boy," Hux's voice was soft over the old headset. "You loose a lot of credence for constellations and folklore when you can watch a million years of astronomy flash away like this." 

Kylo thought about that. He'd learned a few constellations when he'd been young, but moved around so much, and the stars changed overhead too often to remember any specifically. "Why bother learning them?" 

"I thought they would be the same everywhere. That the same sky would be with me my whole life." Hux paused, a low laugh escaping him. "Disgustingly optimistic." 

"You got more out of it this way," Kylo thought of the records, scoured of Hux's name, his accomplishments and triumphs all deleted in an instant. "More stars. You even ate one." 

Hux didn't reply. He must be in the second gunner's saddle on the other wing, looking at the same stars Kylo was. Thinking the same things.

"I am eating my pride as fast as it's presented to me," Hux said softly. "I was a fool to think the First Order would keep me. I'd have gone to my death thinking you and Phasma were right around the corner, fighting to get to me."

"I did fight to get to you," Kylo replied with slight acid. 

"For all the good it's done us both," Hux said. He sounded tired, bone weary through the headset. "I called your mom for a ride. Days ago I commanded the largest military force in the galaxy. The last time I had to trim my nails was before I destroyed an entire planetary system." 

"The blood under your nails might recommend you to be more frequent with that activity," Kylo replied. 

They sat in frozen silence on either side of little junky Seafarer, while the stars streaked by. Kylo's chest ached and his breath was coming short, but he kept his mouth shut. 

"When I arranged to become invaluable to Snoke, it never occured to me that what might save me in the long run was physical proximity to the son of the General of the Resistance," Hux said in a low voice. "I assumed you'd be the one to kill me, in the end." 

"Why?" the question came out before Kylo could stop it, startling them. 

Hux was quiet for a moment, then there was a click as the other headset was disconnected. Distantly, Kylo heard Hux climb down from the gunners bubble. 

Reluctantly, Kylo pulled himself up, through the wing and climbed down to the little companionway between the cockpit and the mess.

Poe and Finn were already in the mess, sitting side by side at the Dejarek table. Poe staring at a star chart flimsy held in one hand, the other pushing food in his mouth. Finn was reading a history data disk, but kept an eye on Kylo and Hux, and made sure they noticed it. The four of them ate in uneasy silence, Poe and Finn swapping a comment occasionally, though Kylo and Hux sat without trying to chat. The medical droid floated beside them, occasionally telling Poe to chew more carefully, and not squint at the star charts. 

Poe and Finn were quietly impressed with the Republican rations, though Poe claimed he didn't like the sweet for desert and gave his to Finn, who clearly loved them. Kylo watched Poe talking to the medical droid with casual respect, and was struck suddenly with a memory. Standing on the hot stone of an alien world, watching his uncle working on his X-wing, talking to his astrotech droid. What had been it's name? He could remember his uncle laughing as it squawked at him in binary, the two of them working together as he'd looked on. The sun had been hot on his dark hair, but he'd been unwilling to go in, there was nothing to do inside, and his mother wouldn't leave the command room for hours. 

He shoved the memory away. He'd spent a productive couple of years gainfully ignoring his childhood memories he was not going to let them in now. 

"Human designated Hux requires treatment," The medical droid said, breaking away from Poe politely, "I will be glad to continue this conversation at another time convenient to all parties." 

Hux silently stood, his dainty Republican ration tray totally cleared. He left without speaking, and the medical droid fussed off after him.

Left sitting at the table with only Poe and Finn, Kylo flicked on the Dejarek board, and scowled at the pieces that flickered to life.

"Treatment?" Poe glanced at Kylo after the droid had departed. 

Kylo looked up blankly. 

"I took the medical droid as a precaution," Poe clarified. "Not because it was needed immediately." 

"What's wrong with Hux?" Finn asked point blank. 

Kylo weighed his answers briefly, "The Revivalists tortured him," he said shortly, "They planned to execute him." 

Poe's jaw tightened and Finn shifted slightly, glancing at Poe. 

"Tortured him," Poe said flatly, eyeing Kylo, "Shit you don't say." 

Kylo looked back at the Dejarek figures, scowling.

"So why didn't the First Order come for him," Asked Finn. He watched Kylo with a flat, unblinking stare that Kylo found hard to meet. "Why did you come alone?" 

"I had a vision of the anti-First Order, and anti-Resistance sympathy." Kylo replied, talking to the Dejarek figures. "It couldn't be allowed to happen." 

"But you came alone?" Finn pressed. 

"I killed the general Snoke placed in power when he'd eliminated Hux from all records," Kylo said evenly, "I wasn't exactly in a strong position to rally a squadron to aid the effort." 

Something about Finn softened abruptly, and Kylo glanced up to find Finn looking at him with an unexpected expression of pleased bemusement. 

Kylo sat up a little straighter, "What's on your mind traitor?" He snapped. If Finn was peddling sympathy, he could keep it.

Finn shrugged, unaffected by the slight jab even as Poe tensed visibly. 

"Hold up," Poe bit out, "Which of you is the traitor here?" 

Kylo shut his mouth with a snap, flushing abruptly. 

"It's alright Poe," Finn murmured, then looked back at Kylo. "You were an idiot, killing a general when you needed support to get something done. Stupid thing to do," Finn said bluntly, "But we're all about that here." 

He cast a quick grin at Poe, who paused, then softened and smirked back. 

Kylo stood abruptly. "When do we arrive at the blockade?" 

"It'll be a while, then we're going somewhere safe to recharge the powercells, and scout a little. It's unlikely but we may have been followed." 

Kylo nodded, and reluctantly ducked into the tiny cabin he shared with Hux. The medical droid was still there, and Hux was sitting up, shirtless with his eyes shut, as the droid carefully pulled a bandage off his back. 

Kylo stopped cold. Hux was remarkably fair skinned, and the marks on his chest, sides, back, arms... Hux glanced up, and Kylo turned away. 

He yanked off his boots, threw his coat up to his bunk, pulled his shirt over his head, and climbed up into the top bunk without looking at Hux again. 

Fine pale skin marred yellow and purple with bruises, dark red lines railed with stitches, burns, dents where bones had been cracked. Ribs visible under the skin. Kylo stared at the ceiling and tried to breath slowly, his fists clenched on his stomach. He'd only killed one of Hux's torturers. It wasn't enough. 

Below him, Hux made a small, involuntary noise of pain and the medical droid burbled out some soothing carefully scripted comfort. Kylo shut his eyes, and found himself holding on to the tender spot on his side where the bowcaster had split him open. He'd seen the same weapon literally tear people of smaller mass apart. He tried not to think of that.

"Your treatment is complete," The medical droid said soothingly after a few more minutes, "Human designated Hux, I am authorized to offer you a tranquilizer, will you accept?" 

"No," Hux's voice was tight, and still rough. He was panting slightly. 

"I am available to aid you if you require it," the medical droid said sweetly. 

To Kylo's surprise, instead of leaving, it rose slightly until it was level with the top bunk, and could address him directly. 

"Your stress levels are elevated and there are several injuries on your person which should be treated," It said as Kylo stared at it, "I am capable of treating your injuries, Human Designated Human Disaster." 

Kylo stared at it. Then covered his face with both hands. "Oh no." 

Below him, Hux snorted out a choked little laugh. "It's home system," he choked out, "Was wiped when Poe gutted the shuttle." 

"Do not," Kylo said with feeling, "Diagnose. Go away. Worthless scrap of..." He knew better than to antagonize medical droids, certainly never again attempt to in front of Hux. 

"Two by Four," the droid said primly. 

"What?" 

"Human Designated Poe has designated me Medical Droid Two by Four," the droid replied blithely. "I am available to aid you if you require it." It sank slowly and drifted out the cabin door.

The door shut before Kylo realized he'd propped himself up on his elbows, staring after it. 

"That droid," Hux said from the bunk below, "Just corrected you. You don't have much luck with droids, do you."

"Don't have much luck," Kylo replied hollowly. 

Hux snorted, and then gave a little gasp of pain as he settled along his little bunk. 

Kylo dropped back, looking up at the dark ceiling. After a few moments, his mind was turning up a rising chorus of stress and pressing old visions into him. He sat back up and fished the chart reader and a star chart from the pocket of his coat. He set the little chart reader on a little shelf by his pillow, and dropped a random star chart into it. 

The room exploded mildly into a star system. 

"You kept that?" Hux asked from below him, sounding incredulous and slightly muffled. "You didn't alter your designation for the medical droids, didn't pack any of the weapons onboard, or any clothing, you brought the star charts?" 

"If you don't like it, cover your eyes," Kylo replied shortly. 

Hux was quiet for a while, long enough that Kylo was starting to assume he'd dropped off, then quietly asked. "You pick this chart specifically?" 

"No," Kylo didn't even know how to tell the charts apart by looking at the bright little marbles. 

"Star Killer's system," Hux murmured. 

Kylo sat up and looked over the edge of his bunk. Hux was lying on his stomach, his bare back bandaged and bruised. As Kylo watched, Hux reached a bare, milky pale arm out to touch a single bight star. A few planets and moons popped out from it, each with a tiny, immaculate label. Hux tapped one of the planets, and a small square of data dropped out of it. Hux sighed. 

"Star Killer," He said.

Kylo stared at the bright little planet, orbiting the star that had been devoured so recently. "Of all the charts I brought I pick the out dated one." 

Hux snorted. "Your luck, just as you say."

Kylo lay back, watching the stars slowly turning above his head, and was almost asleep when he heard Hux murmur something. 

"Hmm?" Kylo asked, half asleep. 

"Delusions of grandeur. Thinking you'd be sent to kill me." Hux muttered into his pillow. "But I always thought that's how I'd die." 

Kylo shut his eyes, and turned his face to the wall.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: June 12, 2016 Art added by the amazing and patent Assasyngal (on Tumblr). They are my partner in the KBB and knowing they were going to be reading and adding art for this story was a huge support. <3 (Yes in case you're keeping track my awesome artist contributed three (3) pieces (ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡ I have been smiling for days I can hardly deal with my own delight.)  
> EDIT: July 9, 2017 AHAHAHAHaaaahaahah my goof friend and outstanding beta reader Windlion edited this for grammar, consistency, and readability over a year ago, and those changes have been implemented and this is the updated version. I have learned a lot this year and most of it has been how fortunate I am to have beta readers who deal with my idiocy I thank you.   
> I hope you enjoy this.

Kylo jerked awake and lay perfectly still for a moment, reality warring with the nightmare inside his head. The stars and planets of the star chart turned serenely around him, and for a moment, he was almost able to believe everything was alright. Then with another jerk, Kylo seized the chart, tore it out of its little reader and jumped from his bunk. He landed in a crouch and Hux started awake. Kylo ignored him as he pulled his boots on, grabbed his coat and raced down into Seafarer's little mess. 

"Poe," he barked. He threw his coat on over his shoulders. 

Poe's head appeared around the corner of the door to the cockpit from one side, Finn's from the other. 

"You look worse than usual," Poe remarked. 

"Don't drop out of hyperspace," Kylo snapped. 

"Seafarer can't stay in hyperspace. I'm not dropping out, we're falling out: it's not voluntary." Poe was already moving; Kylo's urgency was infectious. "How did you know we were almost at the end of our run?"

"Phasma's waiting for us," Kylo snapped. He turned, reaching for the ladder up to one of the gunner stations, and froze. 

Hux was standing in the door of their cabin in a short sleeved shirt, sleep rumpled and scruffy with the start of another beard. Kylo looked at him, feeling hollow and hungry and desperate in all the ways Hux would never, ever care about. He'd rarely studied Hux, rarely taken the risk of being caught studying him. The authority and power and drive was so much more visible than narrow shoulders and pale skin and keen eyes that didn't flinch when they glared up at him. 

Behind him, Poe squawked indignantly and went ignored. 

Hux stared back at him, face going from sleepy bemusement to grim. "What did you see?" 

"Help Poe," Kylo looked away.

Finn hit the other gunner's ladder and clattered up without question. 

Kylo glanced at Hux one last time, and pulled himself up the ladder, into the wing and swung himself in and down into the gunner's saddle. 

"Finn," Kylo said into the headset, consciously reminding himself to use that name. 

"Kylo," Finn replied with audible tension. "What am I ready for?" 

"We're dropping out of hyperspace on my count," Poe's voice came through the headsets. 

"Shields are up, such as they are," Hux said just after him. 

"Phasma's waiting for us," Kylo replied. His heart was hammering against the inside of his ribs. How could she possibly be waiting for them? She couldn't be. Kylo's anxiety was just sleep deprivation. He hadn't seen anything, it wasn't a certainty. 

"Ten," Poe said. 

"You sure?" Finn sounded strained. 

"Nine." 

"No," Kylo admitted. His hands were busy on the gunner's console, snapping the toggles into place, arming his gunning station.

"Eight." 

"God I hope you fucked this up," Hux muttered. 

"Seven." 

"Me too." Kylo and Finn said together.

"And me," Poe said, breaking count briefly. 

"How could she waiting?" Hux asked, slightly petulant. 

"Five." 

"If I'm right you could ask her," Kylo shot back. 

"Four."

"She knew we were at the Rebel Base Halation." Hux asked. 

"That place doesn't exist on any charts," Poe said. "Three." 

"Command shuttle, three trooper carriers," Kylo said. The images were still hot inside his mind. "And three full squadrons of TIE fighters."

"Terrific." Said Poe. "Two." 

"Don't bother trying to attack Phasma's shuttle, TIE fighters are vulnerable at the wings, the carriers are vulnerable at the thrusters," Hux barked out.

"Seriously?" Finn snapped. "You know how much time I spent in one of-"

"One." 

The mottled light and dark of hyperspace slowed and stalled out with a jerk, patches of light snapping into place as individual stars. A huge planet, alarmingly close, dark green and lined with white mountain ranges and striped with black rivers hung above them. Three tiny moons were visible, pale pink in the light of their sun. The sky below them was heavy with the spread of stars, and blessedly, wholly empty of any ship. 

Kylo held his breath.

Seafarer's interior abruptly plunged into darkness. 

"We're running as close to dark as possible," Poe said over the noise of Kylo's pulse hammering in his ears. 

Kylo licked sweat from the corner of his mouth and looked around carefully, reaching out ahead of them with his powers and finding nothing. His arms were so taught on the controls they were trembling slightly. The hair on the back of his neck was prickling. It was a nightmare. Please let it have just been a nightmare.

"Kylo?" Hux asked after a few quiet heartbeats. 

This trip is taking years off my life, Kylo thought dimly. But he was wrong. He'd been wrong. It had been a nightmare. There was nothing ahead of them, the huge empty spread of the planet above them and empty space below them. They were alone.

No, they weren't. Kylo's mind woke suddenly to a hungry, quiet, murderous intent. 

"Finn go one-eight-five," Kylo snapped. He didn't need to think about the coordinates, but swung around aimed and fired into apparently empty space. 

And there she was. 

The shots splashed harmlessly against the shuttle's shield, lighting up the tall wings. An absence in the stars, a little black void, raked wings and a raptor's profile. Stalking quietly up through the shadow cast by the planet above them, where she'd known they'd come out of hyperspace. 

"Got them," Finn said. 

Kylo started slightly, still staring at Phasma's creeping shuttle as Finn's shots went wide of it- and lit up against the flank of a trooper carrier. 

"Stern shields up," Hux barked. 

"Hang on back there," Poe called. Above them the planet twisted and dropped away. 

Trooper ships, Kylo thought dumbly. He'd been so amazed to see Phasma right where he'd expected her he'd forgotten for a moment. His hands were aiming and firing, aiming wherever Finn was, focusing fire on one shuttle's little thrusters as Poe snapped the little Seafarer into a series of evasive maneuvers. A barrage of blasts screamed around them on all sides. 

"TIE fighters incoming. Kylo maintain fire on the trooper ship, Finn fire on the TIE fighters," Hux barked through their headsets. 

The fighters screamed past them, whirling and turning and firing, trying to pen Seafarer in. Kylo focused on the flank of the trooper shuttle, concentrating his fire even as the TIE's surged around them, firing at nearly point blank range. Poe flitted and darted through them, moving too fast for the automatic trackers to follow.

Another wave of TIEs overtook them, chivying them back towards the surface of the planet. 

"You're being herded," Hux spat., "Hang back. Kylo, leave the trooper shuttle, fire on the TIEs." 

"It's still in one piece," Kylo replied, deeply frustrated that all his and Finn's efforts had very little to show for it.

A TIE fighter screamed overhead, its wing close enough that Kylo could have reached up to touch it. A second later, his gunner's bubble took a hit; the shock of the blast splashing against the ship's shield knocked the breath out of him. 

“You’ve done enough!" Hux snapped out, "That engine won't engage when they try to land." 

Poe barked out a little curse, "They'll just fall out of the sky? That's cold." 

"Preferable to dealing with over forty troopers," Hux replied. 

Three more shots struck the Seafarer in rapid succession. Another wave of TIEs overtook them, joining the rest of the squadron; Poe nipped the ship back just in time to dodge another barrage, but took another shot on one wing. He dove through the heart of the swarm, drawing fire from a few TIEs who cared less about their fellow pilots than the possibility of striking their objective. Finn and Kylo enjoyed a mass of targets on either side, neither needing decent aim to achieve spectacular hit streaks, and then they dropped out of the swarm. Poe swept them back up, scooting along the lower edge, barely curving out of the way of the blasts that followed them. A few wild shots were landing, splashing against their shields, and Poe swore softly again. 

"How the hell aren't we in pieces?  Our shields shouldn't be able to take this kind of beating." Poe looped and dove, accelerating into the swarm again and jerking to a haul abruptly. Kylo and Finn fired into the onrush of TIEs who hadn't been so swift on the rapid deceleration. 

"I'm shifting energy from shield to shield to catch the blasts," Hux said. "Kylo, that's a squadron leader, go two-seven-four."

Kylo aimed without thinking, saw a plume of short-lived fire and swung around to shoot a blast out before it reached them, then fired on the TIE. 

Poe gave a brief little laugh, "You're focusing the shield where you think the next blast is going to hit and leaving the rest of the ship unshielded? You play to win." 

"It's working," Hux snapped defensively.

“Sure is," Poe whooped. "Keep it up." 

"Finn, squad leader, three-oh-four," Kylo said, suppressing a smile that surprised him. 

"I see her in a convoy," Finn called back, "Poe turn fifteen, Kylo focus fire with me." 

Poe turned and Kylo aimed and fired just as Finn did; the first barrage took out the protective convoy and the next took out the second squad leader. A few TIEs pinwheeled away wildly, their navigation having apparently been linked to their commander. A few more blasts splashed harmlessly against Hux's shields.

The TIEs were noticeably thinner around them, more scattered, losing formation for longer and longer after Poe's sudden dives or charges. 

"Where's the third leader?" Finn asked, aiming with care and loving attention and blasting a floundering TIE out from below them. 

"It'll be Phasma," Hux said briskly. "They're trying to drive you over the planet, Poe, keep back." 

"Phasma's shuttle will have more weapons," Kylo remembered some of the alterations that Phasma had adapted to her personal shuttle. 

"I've been to this planet, there's nothing here," Poe was saying.

"We're flying against its rotation," Hux's voice was suddenly tense, "Back, get back, Poe, she knew we were going to be here."

Kylo suddenly felt sick, tension knotted in his stomach and he found his body tense and hot with adrenaline and terror. He swung himself around to face behind them, through the thinning TIEs to where Phasma had quietly gained on them. She was nearly on top of them, and she had cannons that even Hux's perfectly placed, perfectly timed shields wouldn't catch. He cursed very quietly. She hadn’t fired on them yet, it was the only reason they were still flying.

"Kylo," Finn said. 

"They're heavy laser cannons," Kylo replied. Finn was facing Phasma just like Kylo, the two of them must have moved in tandem to see her. 

Phasma fired and Finn and Kylo fired back at the same moment.

Hux swore, and Finn and Kylo's shots hit Phasma's in a shockwave that blasted the little Seafarer and made the shields flash blue and green around them. Poe wrenched the ship out and around, diving for the cover of the last milling TIEs. They got off a few desultory shots as Poe wove neatly around them and Phasma fired again. 

"We've lost almost 40% power to the shields," Hux snapped.

"Auxiliary power here," Poe said briefly. He kicked the ship forward, putting distance between Seafarer and the explosion of Phasma's cannons as Finn and Kylo kept up a rapid rate fire to either side. 

The TIEs were rallying around Phasma's advancing shuttle. They spread out on either side of it like a second set of wings, arching forward, chasing the Seafarer ahead of it. Hux caught the blasts Finn and Kylo couldn't shoot down, or that Poe couldn't dodge, but each time, the force of the blasts on the side of the ship became more jarring. 

"Even with the aux power we're at 30%," Hux growled. "We can't take any more fire."

"I can't get around them," Poe said. "Not without taking more hits and we can't make a jump until Seafarer's recharged.”

Each time he dipped up or down, a full broadside of enemy fire forced him back. Flying ahead of Phasma's shuttle, and between the two tips of the reaching wings of TIEs, no blasts came in. They were in the eye of the storm and being herded forward. Kylo and Finn kept up a stream of fire, but the TIEs were shooting defensively, and only a few of their shots hit. 

"You got any ideas over there, Hux?" Finn called. 

"I'm getting driven in where I've been told repeatedly not to go," Poe's voice sounded a little strained. "Remember me talking about the concatenation of misfortune? This is that. This is exactly that." 

"Hux," Kylo said quietly. His gut was tight, his breath was coming shorter and shorter. He was staring at a the jagged, spreading wings of his death, Phasma at its centre, and he couldn't think of a thing to say. 

"Really wish Phasma hadn't studied this maneuver so well," Hux snarled. "Since I taught it to her. Forget what I said about the planet, Poe. Pretty sure she's forcing us over this mountain here. Charge it." 

"What, like a bombing run?" Poe sounded bewildered, but Hux was already snapping out more orders. 

"Finn, Kylo, get ready to shoot. She's going to break formation and charge us. You won't have shields." 

"What? You said we had 30% left, what the hell?!" Finn yelled, loud enough that Kylo could hear him without the headset, and Hux yelled over him.

"Poe, run it down!" Hux snapped. 

The tension that had been mounting between Kylo's shoulders dropped away abruptly. "Well called," he murmured. 

Seafarer lept forward. She'd been dancing like a flighty horse between the tips of the forward reaching wings of TIEs, moving in jerky, fitful little starts and stops, dodging blasts and barely advancing. Now she whipped forward with a speed that knocked the breath out of Kylo. The green of the planet below, the white stripes of its mountains and black lines of rivers suddenly blurred under him. He looked up to see the shuttle lunge after them, scattering TIEs that broke formation around it, aimless and confused. Most followed the shuttle and others fell in with the three lurking trooper shuttles. 

The shuttle fired, then fired again before the first barrage had reached them. Kylo and Finn snapped into readiness, aimed, fired and took out the waves of artillery as they came. The shuttle fired again and Kylo and Finn returned, both sides starting and keeping up rapid, dedicated stalemate rate of fire. 

"If we're headed where she wants us to go," Poe called, "Why the hell is she still firing at us." 

"She's trying to draw our shields," Hux snarled, "I taught her this simulation she can't expect--" 

Kylo tensed without knowing why. Below him, on the surface of the planet that was suddenly alarmingly close, a twinkle of white light exploded into a knife blade that roared up towards them. 

"Charge through it!" Hux called. "Keep steady!" 

Poe swore, but Seafarer kept rock steady on her course. For a moment, blinding white light shone all around them. It roared past them, so loud Kylo couldn't hear himself scream, couldn't draw breath as it went on and on. He could just see, below him, the greenish shadow of their shields spilling the force of the blast away. There was nothing else. They were inside a hot, white world of pressure and noise and heat.

Then it snapped off, and the surface of the planet was close enough they could see individual trees, the cliffs on the plateaus and mountains. 

"That weapon can't fire down," Hux snapped. "Stay low, find a place to hide." 

Poe gasped out a string of breathless expletives and nipped the Seafarer around, neatly missing a mountain top and wheeling around in a tight arc. 

Kylo, breathless and stunned from the hit they'd somehow survived, scanned the sky above them. The shadow of Phasma's ship was a dark V away above them, charging in.

Poe curved around a huge tree, scooted over the canopy of its shorter fellows, then the thundering emptiness of a river opened up below them. 

"Hold on," Poe snapped, cutting Hux off. 

They whipped down and sideways so fast nothing could have prevented them spinning out. Kylo was slammed sideways, and waited to feel the brief, horrible moment of impact and death. It never came, and he slowly opened his eyes. They were a few feet above the surface of the river, Poe following its course with exacting precision. The huge trees zipped by on either side, a few feet away from their wing tips. Kylo could nearly touch some of them. High above them, the canopy of the forest nearly closed, making a near perfect little tunnel. Sunlight from above dazzled him in brief flashes as it lanced down between the leaves tearing by. 

"One hell of a pilot," Kylo muttered, looking at the water being torn up in a plume behind them. The trees flashing by on either side blurred. 

Finn snorted in his headset.

"If we want to make another jump and get the hell out of here, we'll have to stop and recharge," Poe said. "Also if we want to go after that thing that attacked us with Phasma following us we'll need shields." 

"Phasma'll find us; she'll still have two shuttles of troopers and the rest of her TIEs," Hux snapped. "We have to find somewhere to hide, and then buy some time." 

"Really?" Finn burst out, apparently tired of waiting for someone else to broach the topic. "No one's going to ask? Is anyone going to talk about what the hell the huge white sword of light that was all up about to blast us into nothing actually WAS?" 

"Poe, there's a waterfall ahead with a basin at the base. Put the ship behind the water, that's the best cover you can hope for," Kylo heard himself say. 

"Phasma will storm that little basin if it's even there. If I'm going to be shot it's not going to be standing with my back to a wall." Hux snapped. "Where else can we hide?" 

"Anyone? Giant white beam of murder light?" Finn called.

Kylo looked up to find a TIE fighter whip overhead. It apparently hadn't noticed them. "Hux, she's already here. We can hold out until we can run." 

"Waterfall is right there, fellas, I'm going to need a decision," Poe yelled.

"She has the numbers, she can overwhelm us," Hux insisted. "We can't run if we can't recharge."

"We don't have time. We have cover," Kylo snapped back, "We'll hold out." 

There was a breathless pause. Even Finn seemed content to let the question of the white beam of light go unexplored for a this moment. Ahead of them, the water spread ahead of them in a black ribbon until it ended abruptly, the sky beyond a pretty, alarmingly near window between trees, canopy and the end of the river. 

"Get to cover. Use the waterfall," Hux barked. 

They shot out over the edge of the waterfall, and hung for one breathless second in the air over a dizzying drop, black water falling away below them. On either side, the trees thrust out in tough scrappy outcrops from the tumbled rocks, reaching out over the sheer drop into the sunshine.  The basin below them glittered, a jewel bright bowl in the sunshine of smooth water, clouded in white mist and fringed in wide green leaves.

Poe dove straight down. 

"I sure hope you're right about there BEING a cave," he called. 

They were nose down and turning slightly as they dove. Kylo, breathless, facing the smooth water of the lagoon racing towards him much faster than falling speed, glanced up to see the huge, white sheet of the waterfall slowly moving up as they streaked by it. 

"Hold on," Poe called. 

Kylo, having learnt that wasn't rhetorical, hung on. This time, he didn't smash into the side of the gunner's bubble when Poe made a right angled turn at high speed, burst through the waterfall and stopped dead. 

The sound of water suddenly boomed around them in the silence that followed. Something rolled over and over and fell off the table in the mess. Kylo opened his eyes to find Seafarer's nose about a hand span away from the smooth rock wall behind the falls. The whine of a TIE fighter shot overhead somewhere and away. They were in a little round cave, the wall of white water making a curtain across most of the opening, with a platform of bare, damp rock on either side. 

He let out a long, shaking breath. 

Poe trimly turned his ship around, and dropped it onto the narrow, sloping shelf of rock and sand by the water's edge. The weapon's console around him abruptly powered down, the engines went from a growl he hadn't been noticing to flat silence. The noise of the waterfall echoed around them.

For the time it took to ease his hands to loose their panicked grip on his console, Kylo sat in perfect stillness on the gunner's saddle. He listened to three other people catching their breaths over his headset. 

"Now," Finn said after a while, "If we have a moment. Could someone tell me what the hell was that?" 

"It's the same weapon the Revivalists used to carve open my Finalizer," Hux said. He sounded slightly muffled, like he had both hands over his face. Then he grunted, and his voice came clearly. "We were recovering in First Order controlled space when a bolt of light lanced up from the planet below us and cut my ship in half. I assumed that the First Order would have recovered that weapon." He added, an acerbic little after thought. "And if Phasma really did know we were coming out here, she would have had something ready for us." 

"And you caught that blast with 30% shield strength?" Finn asked. He sounded like he was in the place beyond hysteria. 

"Deflected," Hux replied. "I didn't shield the entire ship. Whatever makes up that weapon acts like a jet of water or air. You can create a slip stream. I think the Republicans were using it as an energy generating station, then the Revivalists weaponized it." 

"Sure, sure," Poe said, in the calm voice of someone whose soul was already halfway out of their body. "30% shield strength deflecting the blast of something that cut open a Resurgent class star destroyer. Alright." 

"If the Finalizer hadn't tried to move it wouldn't have been so effective," Hux replied. "You keeping course as we went through it helped stabilize things." 

"Well done us," Poe said. Now his voice sounded muffled. "Did you know that was going to work?"

"Yes," Hux lied calmly.

Finn let out a long, agonized sounding breath. 

"Likewise, Finn," Kylo said with some feeling. He was feeling breathless and slightly weak from the Seafarer's recent maneuvers. A droid could not have flown like Poe fucking Dameron. He felt sick. He dropped heavily against his console; his feet fell out of their stirrups and he let them hang on either side, his toes just touching the lower curve of the gunners bubble. 

"Well it did work," Hux said after a few moments for apparent reflection. "All of it. This ship's shields are two generations out of date and the gunning stations are archaic." 

"An alternative is probably screaming around on the other side of the waterfall trying to find us as we speak if you'd rather," Poe started, still sounding muffled. He apparently was unable to muster up the energy to really defend his ship.

"I mean," Hux said, his voice clipped, "we survived." 

There was a pause, a quietly appreciative pause. Finn chuckled weakly over the headset. 

"Told you we were all about crazy," He muttered, Kylo could hear him smiling. "Can't wait to tell Rey." 

Questions and demands suddenly jumbled up against the tip of Kylo's tongue and stuck there.

The silence became charged, Poe and Finn actively leaning into it, waiting to see what Hux and Kylo might have to say on the matter of Rey and her notable absence. 

Hux, master tactician, didn't say a damn thing and Kylo followed suit. All four of them relaxed by degrees as the water boomed around them, and the quiet, regular blip of the Seafarer's ancient power core slowly charged its power cells. Kylo faintly heard the howl of a TIE zipping past, looking for them.

"Phasma will find us," Hux said after a while. "There's nothing we can do to stop that. I understand how very near invisible this ship is, but she'll still come." 

"What then?" Poe asked. "I mean, I've been taken prisoner once and the glamour's off."

Silence followed this. In which Kylo kept his damn mouth shut and then Poe went on. 

"Will she take prisoners? And what about Finn?" Poe grunted, and the noise of the pilot's chair straightening pinged. "She's not getting him back." 

"Not while I'm alive anyway," Finn muttered. "That's a promise." 

"Don't," Poe snapped. "We talked about that." 

"Finn's been out of conditioning too long," Hux said heavily. "Phasma wouldn't risk trying to reeducate or recondition him. Though she might make an example of him. Show troopers can't leave." 

"The hell she will," Poe muttered. Kylo heard his actual voice and the echo over the headset; he was moving through the ship. 

"Kylo?" Hux asked. 

Kylo shut his eyes. Immediately, he heard it all again, saw his most recent nightmare and watched what would happen when Phasma caught them here. Poe screaming like an animal as Finn died, catching a blast meant for Poe and falling beside him. Poe had died while his body was still whole, while his heart was still beating. Poe shouting and begging and shaking Finn to get up, get to safety, cut off as a blast went through his neck.

"She'll kill us all," Kylo said quietly. "If we let her. She won’t risk us eliciting sympathy or gaining an advantage later. She's not going to trust her troops around a free trooper and the man who helped him escape. Not while the Order is this weak." 

Hux huffed out a long breath. "How long until we can actually run? Can we even cross the blockade at this point?" 

"Blockade, no. Not here." Poe grunted and a clang from somewhere beside Kylo sent a little frisson of a tremor through his saddle. "But there's a few jump paths that Seafarer knows by heart. And one of those is a 'get the hell out of dodge and run' path. We've used it before. Once she has a full power core she can run without much notice." 

Kylo made a huge effort of will, and crawled out of the gunner's pod and back through the wing. Poe was at the base of the ladder as he swung onto it, scowling at a panel he'd opened on the deck. Something was clearly wrong. 

"What is it?" Kylo carefully climbed down on one side of the open panel. 

"Reactor is struggling. Recharging the shields and the core at the same time. I can prioritize one, but ideally we'll need both when we get out of here, possibly through a swarm of TIEs, troopers and the command shuttle." Poe sat back on his heels and pulled his head set off, looping it around his neck. "I'm inclined to charge the hyperdrive, but we can't run if we're in pieces. What were our shields at when we landed?" 

"It doesn't matter," Hux's voice came from the open door to the cockpit. 

Poe stiffened. "That bad, huh?" 

"28%," Hux said, and Poe relaxed.

Then he and Kylo and Finn suddenly flinched as Hux went on, unseen. 

"The three and a half seconds we were inside that light burned through 28% of our shields. And that was me minimizing the surface exposed to damage. And angling to deflect the blast." 

"Are you seriously telling me was came out of that thing with two percent remaining?" Finn asked. His head and shoulders were just out of the crawlspace in the wing and he seemed to be frozen there. 

"One point four if you want specifics." 

Hux grunted softly and Kylo realized he was moving before he could stop himself. He reached the door of the cockpit just as Hux was pushing himself up out of the little co-pilot's seat. His knuckles white on the console before him and stupidly, Kylo reached out to help him.

"Don't," Hux snapped. 

Kylo yanked his hands back. 

Hux panted, pulling himself upright. 

"I can manage," He snarled, breathless. 

Kylo set his teeth, watching as Hux came to attention using apparently nothing but a scaffold of sheer pride. 

"I'm prioritizing the shields," Poe called. 

Both Hux and Kylo broke their silent glaring to look into the companionway at him. He was still crouched at his console, totally absorbed, with Finn beside him. 

"If we have to, we'll protect ourselves using the shields while we charge the hyperdrive," Finn summarized the plan that he and Poe had apparently come up with as Poe neatly clipped the panel shut and stood. 

Hux nodded. He looked white and waxy, his hair damp with sweat. 

"You look like hell," Poe remarked, looking more than a little alarmed. He stared at Hux, apparently immune to the glare that was coming back the other way.  "Two by four?" 

The power-up noise of a medical droid came faintly from the over stuffed medical room, and Finn stepped down into the mess to tap at the medical bay's door. It slid open, and every item that had not been safely strapped down fell out at him and piled around his ankles. 2x4 floated serenely above the mess, and Finn moved politely aside to let it glide out into the companionway. 

"Some items were dislodged while I was in low power mode. This can be corrected," It said calmly. "Human designated Hux requires immediate medical attention." 

"I'm aware," Hux growled. 

Kylo pointedly stood out of the way, and Hux passed him with an effort that was painful to watch. 

"I'm learning so much about the First Order from all three of you," Poe muttered, once Hux had made it safely to his cabin, 2x4 shepherding him in the whole way. 

"Is that so," Kylo's gaze snapped from Hux's retreating back to Poe in an instant. Finn tensed. 

Poe looked up at him. He hadn't backed down when Kylo had tortured him and he didn't back down now. "You're nearly as hard on yourselves as you are on the rest of us." 

Kylo opened his mouth, and shut it again. The scar over his face felt raw suddenly. The wound on his shoulder and side ached. The edges of the wound in Poe's mind, the edges he'd carved into the man before him, felt jagged now, even without trying to read him. 

"If anything happens," Finn said, breaking the heavy silence that had fallen, "I draw fire away from the ship. Kylo, you cover me. Poe you keep the ship together, keep it charging." 

Poe and Finn looked at Kylo expectantly, but Kylo just nodded. 

They ate standing up in the galley. Like the medical bay, everything that hadn't been strapped in place had been thrown around in their run, and Kylo leaned on the little galley counter, ankle deep in condiment jars, data pad notebooks and ration packets. Poe and Finn ate standing side by side. Poe silently passed Finn his dessert. 

The noise of the TIE fighters came more frequently as they stood in silence, aching to hear them closing in. 

"How do you know she'll find us?" Poe asked after a few quiet minutes after he'd finished his breakfast. 

"She's been ordered to so she will. Somehow," Kylo replied flatly. "Believe me. She's not a captain, and hasn't been for years, it's just what she prefers to be called. Alongside myself and Hux, she was the First Order's most valuable resource, and now she's aware that she's in a position to be the only resource that matters. You say that Seafarer has memorized jumps from around here? She probably saw the activity and guessed this is where we'd be. She'd have out squadrons on other likely places, but she'll be able to anticipate Hux almost as well as he can anticipate her." 

The thought was deeply troubling. 

He took the fourth ready ration and brought it to his cabin, leaving Poe and Finn looking quietly after him. Inside the little cabin, Hux was sitting shirtless, and 2x4 was poised at his shoulder, quietly working at something under Hux's skin. 

Kylo stared. He swayed slightly, then shook himself. 

"Can you eat?" Kylo set the hot rations on the little fold down desk where Hux could reach it.

Hux was white faced and glassy eyed, his expression turned inward in a way only someone consciously, and painlessly experiencing invasive surgery could look. He was leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees with his hands clasped in front of his mouth. He was trembling slightly. 

"No," He whispered. 

2x4 pushed another careful, shiny, steel tool into the neat, bloodless incision in Hux's side.

"Rib broke," Hux said blankly, his voice soft. His face was tipped up to look at Kylo, though his eyes were glassy and unfocused. "When I thought... When I saw how fast the shields were burning out. I thought it would happen again."

"Damage has been done to the eleventh left side rib," 2x4 said, managing to sound soothing and slightly admonishing at once. "It can be corrected with precision and patience if--" 

Poe shouted from the cockpit and Finn barked out Kylo's name. Both men darted past the open cabin door in the companionway in a clatter of boots. 

Hux shushed 2x4 with a sharp gesture and he and Kylo stared upwards blindly, as though they could see through the ship, through the stone of the cliff, through the waterfall. In the sky above them, something huge and heavy was giving a dull whistle as it shot over head, growing louder, and ended abruptly in an agonizingly loud, splintering explosion. The crash was alarming close.

"Trooper transport landing engines didn't engage, I told you," Hux said. "She did find us." 

"Keep him here," Kylo snapped at 2x4. "Heal him." 

"You can't order that," Hux snarled, coming alive like he'd been burned. 

"Hux, Phasma wants you  _ dead _ . Stay here," Kylo snapped, just as 2x4 squawked indignantly at Hux's sudden movement.

"Wants you dead," Hux struggled to push 2x4 away when it still had half of its medical apparatus buried in his side. 

"You," Kylo bapped 2x4 on its casing as he went past it. "Sedate him if he tries to leave this cabin." 

"Sedation order confirmed, Human Designated--" 2x4 said crisply, but Kylo didn't wait.

He caught a glimpse of Poe in the cockpit, snapping the weapons array online and checking the charge on the shields. No point staying dark now. The ramp doors were open and Kylo was halfway down to the wet sandy stone of the rock shelf below when he was jerked roughly to a stop, then dragged back a step. 

"You," Poe growled. 

Kylo turned, astonished to find Poe Dameron gripping by the arm, actually holding him back. He blinked. Poe, even in dire circumstances, had been amiable, even polite. Before Kylo had interrogated him he'd made his jailor laugh. He'd joked with Kylo Ren at the very end of his life and in considerable pain. That was all gone now; Poe was a man who was perfectly ready to kill right now. He'd come out of the cockpit at explosive speed to catch Kylo.

"If you let anything happen to Finn," Poe growled, he had a grip like the bite of a monster. "If he takes damage when you're supposed to be covering him. I don't care what I told the general, I will fly you straight into a fucking sun." 

Kylo pulled his arm out of Poe's grip with an effort. Poe's mind, healing jagged edges and wide open skies and gale-force thoughts that moved too fast, was a barely contained firestorm.

"I'll protect him," Kylo heard himself say. And felt much more surprised than Poe looked as he heard his own words. 

He turned abruptly and jumped to the sandy stone of the basin floor. It was wet and cool and the mist hung in the air just thick enough to pearl on the edges of his clothes. 

Finn was waiting for him at the edge of the crescent of stone at the edge of the waterfall. He was looking grim, carrying a blaster in both hands and a spare over his shoulder.

"One trooper ship is on the ground," Finn said quietly. "Down river, they're sweeping the forest, heading uphill towards us."

"Phasma?" Kylo replied. 

"Overhead," Finn glanced up and out. There was a wide gap between the white cloud of churning water at the base of the waterfall and the rock face of the cliff, and Kylo felt conspicuous standing there. He reached out, and found the tight, focused minds of troopers methodically working their way towards them. 

His heart was aching inside him, the tension between his shoulder blades was painful. He had to prevent this. 

Standing beside Finn, Kylo looked out at the basin. The cliffs went on on either side of him in a huge arc on one side and a flat ridge on the other. Below him, the green of the forest sloped downhill into a gentle valley, where mist clouded his view of a green plateau away opposite him. There was a dark smudge of smoke rising a little further down river. 

"The first trooper shuttle," Finn said in a low voice. "Dropped out of the air. Just like Hux said." 

"Is it easier?" Kylo was honestly curious. Finn glanced at him and went on, "You made a choice. Is it easier to understand that they don't?"

"Nothing about that is easy," Finn looked away. 

Kylo saw the first little white fleck in the darkness of the trees then.  Finn tensed, dropped to one knee, and pulled his blaster up in perfect shooting form. Kylo stepped ahead of him, his sabre in hand. 

"Ready?" Finn murmured. 

Kylo nodded. They had to hold out. Had to give Poe the chance to charge the Seafarer's pitifully depleted reserves. 

One trooper's head swung around, suddenly facing them, and Kylo felt the stab of pleasure and adrenaline light up her mind. Then the attention of ten, twelve, seventeen troopers was on him. In their mind, they didn't see Finn on one knee behind Kylo, aiming out at them. They saw Kylo Ren in a short sleeve shirt and ripped pants, unarmored and without his helmet, his sabre snapping and sizzling in the white water from the falls. 

"You don't seem all that nervous," Finn muttered. 

Kylo looked through the shining green of the basin. The water cut a dark smooth ribbon between the banks, and on either side, creeping towards them, trooper after trooper was edging into view. He could sense another fifteen, then seventeen, then twenty-five killer's minds in the forest. More were coming now; there could be more than eighty around. Kylo swallowed painfully, his heart was beating too fast. 

"I'm not sure why you'd say that," Kylo replied, taking cover in strict linguistic honesty. 

"I'm crouched behind you with a blaster pointed at your back," Finn remarked.

He wasn't making a threat, both of them knew it, and Kylo idly swung the sabre around his hand again. Almost forty troopers now, and he could see them advancing cautiously, their front line staggered for maximum cover, using the terrain. 

"Out of all the people pointing blasters at me, Finn," Kylo said, "you're the only one I'm not worried about." 

Finn snorted, and Kylo felt the snap of mental agility from Finn as a blast howled past him, neatly missing his shoulder. Kylo didn't flinch and an advancing trooper away down river snapped his head back and died. The advancing troopers were too far away to shoot back. 

Overhead, the huge, heavy dark wings of Phasma's command shuttle came out from the cliff edge above them. A cloud of birds, bright and beautiful, exploded in terror from the trees and flew up and away in panic. She turned her ship above the franticly wheeling birds, and dropped down to land, crushing the trees and plants, settling neatly astride the river. The hard lines of the wings and shuttle, and gunmetal black armor, the spikes of the cannons and the gleaming black transparisteel of the bridge command looked horrifically out of place in the shining green of beautiful little valley.

"Can you shoot her?" Kylo asked. The troopers were rallying around the shuttle, and formed up defensively around where the shuttle ramps would deploy. They hadn't returned fire yet. They weren't using the shuttle's weapons. Phasma wanted to finish this personally. 

"Phasma? Oh, I can. But not effectively." 

The troopers were forming up before the shuttle in a neat, serrated line, shields at the fore, heavier weapons in the rear. There was nearly eighty of them now, poised in neat lines on either bank of the narrow little river.

Finn's mind was like lightning in a bottle, a bright crackling power just on the edge of Kylo's perception. Kylo felt like a beast in a trap. 

The ramps came down, Phasma in her shining armour stormed to the rocky river bank at the head of her personal guard, and then the entire wall of white troopers moved. 

To Kylo, it looked like a white metal wall advancing, like the jaws of a vise closing. I told him, Kylo cursed himself, I told Poe to hide here. Hux was the one who pointed out we'd just die with our backs to the wall. 

"Stay behind me," Kylo urgently. His breath was coming shorter. Phasma, towering almost a head taller than her troopers was advancing to the fore. "Finn, you stay right behind me." He raised one hand and reached out. 

The air before them suddenly flashed hot as roughly a hundred blasters fired at once. Finn bit out a curse and fired back, and Kylo snapped tension into his outstretched hand as he pushed through it, and barked with pain and shock as the effort of what he wanted to do tore at his mind. He couldn't catch this many, he couldn't catch even a tenth like this, but he didn't need to. 

The blaster shots missed by a hairsbreadth, so close Kylo felt heat flash against his bare arms, whipping through his hair. A wall of red light that howled towards him and parted, barely, before his outstretched hand. 

His mother had told him about this. It had seemed stupid to him at the time, why would you divert a blaster shot by a few millimetres at the barrel when you could simply catch it? He let out a breath. He was going to have to tell her he'd finally learned why manipulating a blaster's aim was so valuable. 

Behind him, Finn gave an astonished, breathless little laugh. 

From this distance he couldn't hear Phasma's rapid orders, but he saw their effects, the troopers began firing in bands, erratically, and Kylo's lightsabre snapped up defensively almost on it's own, catching blaster shots with a crack and a gasp of smoke. 

Suddenly, Finn was as his side, poised with his blaster tucked to his shoulder, and firing back into the oncoming wall of troopers. He was aiming low, for their legs and feet, blasting the ground below into torn up, smoking ruin. The shield bearers in the fore stumbled, or hesitated, and the tip of Finn's rifle snapped up, shooting into centre-mass as the shield bearers hesitated or faltered. He was focusing on the two flanks of the advancing wall. The fire from the rear, heavy, howling blasts from the large guns and the regular blasters came uninterrupted, and Kylo lashed out with his sabre and his powers, diverting and catching as the blasts came in. 

It was smart and economical, and it was slowing the advancing line, forcing Phasma to deliberately delay the centre of her force so they didn't get too far ahead of the left and right phalanx. But there was no way it was going to be enough. 

"How long does Poe actually need?" Kylo called. The crack of his sabre as it caught the relentlessly incoming blaster shots was starting to pitch higher into a whine. The grip was heating under his bare hand. 

"Longer than you two can give him." 

Kylo whirled, suddenly furious, and a blaster shot whined alarmingly close over his head, unchecked and unnoticed.

"What are you doing?" Kylo snarled to Hux, grunting and snapping his attention back to the advancing wall of troopers. Phasma gleamed at their head. 

Hux came to stand resolutely on Kylo's other side, and swung a long barreled blaster rifle from his shoulder, looking coolly down into the troopers in the basin. 

"She's doing Arebea Cor's advance," he muttered. "She'll be bringing the TIEs around to fire into us if she has to slow down any more. They're over our heads and just behind the rim of the cliff. She knows I'm here and so she won’t risk them unless she has to." 

"You sound pretty positive," Finn called, not looking back.

"This is a simulation she played through a lot," Hux replied. He stood at Kylo's side, and swung the long barrel of the blaster down to aim into the heart of Phasma's advance. "I tracked what my officers scored in simulations. She's excellent at this one, but here and now, she has about forty fewer troops than she's used to. And the weakness of this maneuver is a sniper, cover and bad terrain. Which we can manage. Finn, keep aiming at the fringes and at the ground to slow them. I'll take the head shots and the TIEs when they come around. Kylo will cover us."

"How did you get out?" Kylo snarled, "I told that droid--" The sabre cracked and whined as he deflected a heavy blast from the rear artillery. The area he had to defend was a lot bigger with Hux here. 

"Your inability to hit a droid isn't one I share," Hux replied. He fired and a riot trooper nearly two hundred feet away snapped his head back and died. 

Kylo had never seen Hux use a weapon before, but it was clear that wasn't because of squeamishness or lack of ability. Hux held the long rifle in both hands, tight to his shoulder, one foot forward, turned slightly to give his left side to the advancing troops. He had yanked a ripped, bloody white shirt over his bare chest, and the suspenders of his stolen fatigues hung to his knees. His hair fell over the stock of the rifle as he tucked his head down to the sights, and Kylo had to jerk his focus away from the sight.

The grip of his sabre was almost too hot to hold, and Kylo caught the next barrage with his hand outstretched, the effort of deflecting the shots tearing at edge of his endurance. 

"You're injured," Kylo panted through his teeth. His hand was stinging. Bolts of light darted and crawled between his fingers, lanced into his palm.

"We're all injured," Finn snapped, not interrupting his careful assault on the shining green earth on either side of the the river bank. 

TIE fighters howled suddenly overhead, and Kylo had a sudden, sickening mental image of what a TIE fighter blast could do to a human body when they met on bad terms. With a scream of rage that came straight from sheer terror, Kylo reached up for one of the TIEs, and wrenched it sideways. In the sky above them, it spun awkwardly, unsure what had happened to its neat, brisk trajectory, and knocked against one of its fellows. The wings locked and the two TIEs, both started by the apparent malfunction and unexpected collision, spun out and crashed into the forest beyond Phasma's shuttle.

Kylo staggered and groaned. His left arm had gone numb and dropped lifelessly to his side. 

"What," said Hux flatly, staring down towards the smoking wrecks of the TIEs, "did I just say about who takes the TIEs?" 

Kylo tightened his grip on the burning sabre handle and hauled it up, taking a step back to widen his stance and catch the next barrage. 

Both of Phasma's phalanxes on either side of the river had paused briefly, looking up at the two falling TIEs. Both sides had holes in them, the troopers stumbling over Finn's uneven ground and picked off by Hux. Phasma moved through them, carrying them forwards, a beacon in the smoking green ruin around them and the clustering troopers. The remaining TIEs turned their cannons down, pointed at them, and Hux calmly shot upwards. His shots looked like they could have been placed by hand, and Kylo watched as the one TIE's blaster broke neatly in two before it could fire. 

"Poe," Finn gasped. He stopped firing.

Kylo glanced at him, his face was a urgent mask of horror, blaster held slack in both hands, staring down at the advancing lines of troopers and dark river that cut down between them. 

"He'll be alright," Hux shot up at the TIEs again, and one wobbled slightly, righted itself briefly, then slid sideways and down in jerks until it hit the canopy and dropped out of sight.

Poe's head, selkie dark hair just above the water, was going back under when Kylo caught sight of him. He was in the river between the oblivious phalanx of the Troopers. 

Finn jerked forwards, breaking away from Kylo's side, towards the river. 

"Don't," Kylo snapped. He reached out, his left arm fuzzy and slow with pain as feeling returned to it. Then instinct made him recoil. A TIE fighter had fired, and Kylo caught his burning sabre grip in both hands, lunged forwards and slashed the blast out of the air. 

The splash of blaster fire blew up and out around him. Hux barked in alarm, and Finn screamed and fell. For a moment, Kylo's entire world flashed white and the sabre grip burned in his hands.

Hux cursed, swung the barrel of the long rifle around and fired. Shot after shot rang out, and the TIEs fell back as one of their fellows spun out slowly, rebounded off a tree and dropped. Phasma must have told them to pull back; she wouldn't risk them if she could burn through a few extra troopers with the same result.  And she could see as well as any of them that Finn was down.  

"Try and run," Hux snarled, put his head down over the sights of the blaster, and fired again. A panel fell off a TIE as it was hurrying away.

"Finn," Kylo spared a glance down: Finn was lying face down on the sandy stone, blood soaking through the back of his jacket. "If I didn't kill you when I was trying to," Kylo snarled, furiously taking a step forward and parrying the increasing blasts. "You can NOT die when I'm trying to protect you." He barely restrained himself from kicking Finn in the ribs.

Hux divided his time between shooting at the TIEs and at the shield bearers of the encroaching wall of troopers. Without Finn harrying the ground at their feet, they were speeding up, and the TIEs were backing off.

"What the hell was Poe doing in the river," Kylo snarled. The blaster shots were coming in a lot faster without Finn firing back. Hux's rifle was unnervingly accurate but had a much slower rate of fire.  

"Following orders," Hux snapped, "as should you. Now shut up." The long rifle was aiming out, one way then another, Hux standing grim and sure with the huge gun perfectly steady. 

The pain in Kylo's hands was making him shake. He pushed his left hand out with a snarl and the next barrage of blaster shots whined harmlessly over and around them. The air shook around him briefly, and light crackled around his outstretched hand again. 

Phasma's white wall of troopers was moving faster, splitting as the river widened into the bowl of water at the base of the falls. Hux was having to make more dramatic switches from left to right. 

"I'll take Phasma's side," Kylo managed to grit out desperately after a few moments of frantic blocking. With the troopers splitting around the water, the right hand force was moving faster, trying to get around the back of the falls and flank them. Kylo was having to block fewer shots from them as they sped up. 

"She's almost exposed," Hux was bent over his rifle, fitting against it so perfectly it looked like a part of him. "I can't get a clean shot yet." 

"We're getting flanked," Kylo snarled, barely resisting the urge to kick Hux out of his scope. "Focus." 

Hux hesitated, and turned the barrel of the rifle, firing into the advancing troopers edging around the far side of the pool. Kylo rounded on Phasma's side and realized suddenly that they were very, very close. 

In a snap move Kylo powered down his sabre, clipped it to his side and reached out with both hands. The advancing wall of troopers froze, and light darted between his fingers. But he couldn't push them back. He needed to push them back and he couldn't. He let out an agonized little whine, and his arms shook.

"Perfect," Finn grunted from ground level. "Hold them right there." 

Still lying in his blood on the sand, Finn had roused himself enough to pull his rifle around.

"In your own time," Kylo gasped. Light arced with a crack between his hands, but he was trying not to think about that. 

Finn fired, and the advancing wall of troopers died and hung immobile, caught in Kylo's power. Hux was shooting the fastest moving trooper in the phalanx across the basin and for one seemingly endless, impossible moment, the three of them hung on in an impossible stasis. 

"Poe," Finn gasped. 

Finn's body seemed to lose tension Kylo had assumed was pain. Poe was dragging himself out of the water near Seafarer's ramp. He was hacking up water and gasping, barefoot in black shorts and a teeshirt with a heavy bag dragging him down. 

The troopers Kylo had been holding dropped out of the air as he lost focus.

Losing the weight of them through the Force felt like something he'd been leaning against had vanish, and he staggered. The next instant his sabre was back in his hand, and it had cracked into life, barely catching a blast from Phasma. 

"Poe, hurry up," Hux yelled. 

Poe, shedding water at every step, was already staggering up the ramp into Seafarer backwards, dragging his bag after him with both hands.

Then there was a brief scream and Kylo looked up to see a flash of chromium as Phasma fell.

Hux, aiming into the group of troopers across the water, looked up from his scope as his attention snapped around towards where Phasma had been standing. Finn let out a breath, and resumed his rate of fire into the thickest part of the troopers. For the space of a full breath, Kylo had no shots to catch on the edge of his sabre. 

Suddenly, and without preamble, the huge black raptor shape of Phasma's shuttle exploded. 

The troopers jerked in surprise, already hesitating without Phasma beside them, and as one they turned from their fallen commander to the shuttle. One wing twisted aside and fell with a scream of tortured metal, swinging gracelessly across the canopy, breaking off and dropping through the trees. The troopers looked on in mute amazement. 

As did Finn and Kylo, who dropped slightly out of their battle ready tension. 

A plume of fire and smoke roiled up out of the open hatch of the shuttle, and with a thud and boom, the second wing fell, crushing trees under it, until it broke off and fell out of sight into the foliage. 

"What are you doing?" Hux snarled. He was on his feet behind them, his rifle hanging across his back. He had one hand on Kylo's shoulder, jerking him back. "Grab him, run." 

Kylo glanced at Hux, realized at least someone knew what the hell was going on, and snapped his sabre off and reached down. Finn yelled in shock and pain as he was dragged upright, and for a horrible instant, went boneless in Kylo's arms.

"Don't you dare die," Kylo snarled with hardly any breath left in him. 

Finn groaned and Hux got his shoulder under Finn's arm, pulling him more firmly upright. 

"Move," Hux's hand closed over Kylo's arm behind Finn's shoulder, and he dragged both of them around. 

They turned, and the Seafarer suddenly hummed to life. Poe, still dripping wet and barefoot, skidded down the ramp and ran towards them. 

Kylo stumbled and nearly fell, his hands were burnt and his arms were shaking with exhaustion and Finn was heavy and barely conscious between him and Hux. Hux dragged them on, over the stone and sand of the little crescent towards Seafarer's ramp. They were behind the wall of water, and at least shielded from sight. 

Kylo felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, and he dropped Finn, whirled and snapped his sabre up. A blaster shot barked as he slashed it out of the air. He barely managed to stay on his feet, reeling as a knot troopers advanced past the edge of the waterfall towards them, blasters raised. 

"Poe!" Hux barked. He’d gone white and glassy in pain again, and couldn't stand under Finn's weight. 

The troopers didn't advance, but dropped to one knee defensively and began shooting into them with rapid, irritatingly regular rate of fire. A shot whined past Kylo, going wide, and a flash of confusion dropped into dread as Seafarer took the hit. This wasn't about capture anymore, this was to be an execution. They were going to kill Seafarer.

Poe barked in alarm, and Hux gasped out a string of furious curses, and another few troopers ran around into view and joined the party. 

"Finn," Poe's voice was panicked.

"Take him onboard to Two by Four," Kylo gasped out. He stepped back down the ramp towards the troopers.

"Kylo, we have to run," Hux said. "They're going to come around from the other side." 

"I can't," Kylo gritted out. Shots were whining and barking around him, his arms felt numb and his hands were burning. Light crackled painfully between his fingers every time he held out his hand to push the troopers back or divert their shots. The little cave behind the waterfall was filling with smoke, he could hardly breathe. 

"They're behind us," Hux snapped, the bark of his rifle sounded muffled above the thunder of falling water, the blasters firing and the Seafarer taking hit after hit. "We have to move." 

Back to back, Kylo with his sabre and Hux with his rifle, they were suddenly trapped between a handful of troopers on either side of the waterfall. Seafarer was taking half the shots the troopers sent at her, and Kylo doubted that she could take much more. 

"We can't," Kylo gritted out. The moment they stopped defending Seafarer, the troopers would tear it apart. 

"Kylo," Hux called.

He sounded unsure for the first time in Kylo's memory, almost afraid. 

Something broke inside Kylo's chest, and he felt breathless as a surge of power buoyed him up. He gasped, stretched out his left hand, and the strange, savage, howling power inside lunged out of him. 

Stark white lines of light, so bright they left jagged lines burned into Kylo's vision lept from his hand, and the troopers before him jerked back and died. The light arched with malicious accuracy and speed from one to the next. 

"Kylo?" Hux gasped.

Kylo didn't answer him, but turned, putting himself before Hux with his sabre in one hand, his left hand outstretched. He felt invulnerable suddenly, like a giant and he felt feel no pain. The power rose up easily as he called to it. With a crack that lifted his hair, that sent sand gusting away from him and knocked the breath out of him, lightning leapt from his outstretched hand towards the last of Phasma's surviving troopers. Some of them were already retreating, perfectly aware of their own unnatural death speeding towards them. They died with a few brief screams and dropped. 

Hux was staring at him, his rifle held in perfect rest position, as through the practiced form was a comfort to him. 

Around them, Kylo was suddenly aware that there were very, very few minds left to sense. 

"The TIEs are coming back," Hux said suddenly. 

Kylo could hear them, howling in; he braced himself to fight and was faintly surprised when he dropped abruptly to his knees instead. The power that had filled him before was bleakly absent, and he felt empty now. He watched himself power down his sabre. He could barely lift it.

"Move," Hux snarled. He swung his rifle to his shoulder again and stooped, pulling Kylo's arm around his shoulders and hauling him upright. "Kylo,  _ move _ ." 

Kylo tried. But Hux, hauling Kylo's arm around his shoulders and gripping his waist, had to drag him up Seafarer's ramp before they both dropped down in the little companionway, panting. 

"Hux," Poe called urgently, "I need a co-pilot, we've got TIEs overhead." 

A hand, cool and calloused, brushed gently over Kylo's forehead. 

"I'm coming." 

Hux's hand was in Kylo's hair, stroking hard over his head, quick and anxious, like some guilty stolen gesture.

Kylo groaned; he had to get up. Had to get into the gunner's saddle. Below him, Seafarer's decks lurched and tilted, and then there was a crash of water. The shields whined as shots bounced harmlessly into them. Hux's hand jerked away.

"Two by four?" Kylo tried to call, but it came out as a helpless little whine.

"Human Designated Finn has a preexisting medical complaint which has become aggravated," 2x4 was above him when he opened his eyes, a blurry shape hovering towards him, keeping perfectly steady as the ship jerked and dove around them.

Outside, the TIE fighters howled, and in the cockpit, Poe and Hux barked bearings and courses to one another. They had no gunners. Kylo had to get up.

"Human Designated Finn has priority. Human Designated Human Disaster has severe burns on their hands and suffering nerve damage to upper appendages as well as impending loss of consciousness. Please wait for treatment." 

"Yes," Kylo gratefully shut his eyes again. "Take care of Finn."

He gasped as the ship lept suddenly into hyperdrive. The force of it, more vicious and unexpected than the jumps before, knocked the breath out of him. He opened his eyes and looked up, past Hux and Poe, through the cockpit. Outside, the clouds tore apart on either side of them, the sky flashed from blue to black, stars traced out their long paths away behind them, and Kylo let out a breath and fell headlong into unconsciousness. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: July 7, 2017, further edits for grammar and readability updated.   
> I hope you enjoy <3

He dreamt of a someone stroking his hair back. Kylo sighed and shifted, nuzzling up into the hand in his hair. 

"Rude," Hux muttered. 

The hand trailed through his hair one last time, and Kylo woke with a jerk. 

Hux was pulling his hand away from Kylo as he settled back in his seat.

He was lying in Hux's bunk in their little shared cabin, his right hand neatly bandaged, and a star chart was playing. In the light of the little turning stars, Hux looked exhausted and pale; his hair fell over his forehead, his beard had grown enough it couldn't be called simply scruffy any longer. 

“We survived," Hux said shortly, seeing Kylo's look, "all of us. But Poe's not sure where we can go now. We can't run the blockade anymore." 

Hux sat in silence for a while, and Kylo eventually managed to drag himself upright, his knees bent and his hands on his ankles. They sat side by side in the narrow, dark cabin, while a million bright stars spun slowly past. 

"You still haven't told me," Hux said after a long pause. 

Kylo lifted his left hand and studied it. There were tiny, vivid red marks on his palm and between his fingers. Tiny, perfectly even six sided stars. The memory of the strength racing through him, something hungry and savage in his heart that woke with a start and begun to run. He'd felt like the troopers had been toys, like his power could outmatch anything. 

"Actually, there's a lot I haven't told you. Be more specific." Had he really done that? Lightning from his fingertips.

"You," Hux said, sitting so still amid the turning stars he could have been a singularity, "came for me." 

"Your memory's failing you. I did tell you why--" Kylo started, and Hux spoke over him. 

"You told me that you killed Costa and defied Snoke and stole a ship and killed an entire ship’s crew of Revivalists," Hux's voice carried easily over Kylo's. "You said you saw me die and you saw the Revivalists gain power greater than the Resistance, enough to rival the First Order. You told me that you came, and that you had a reason to. You haven't told me why." 

"Does it matter?" Kylo hedged. "You believe that I'm sincere when I say I want to get us both out alive." 

"Yes," Hux asserted shortly, "I've seen adequate proof of that. How's your hand?" 

Kylo looked at his left hand. Little six sided star bursts on the tips of his fingers. They had been meticulously cleaned by 2x4. 

"Rhetorical question, you're fine." Hux went on, "This matters. Why did you come for me?" 

"I saw you die," Kylo said after a pause. 

"You mentioned," Hux began and Kylo made an abrupt, aborted gesture. 

"You were tried and convicted and tortured publicly. People could pay for the privilege to torture you. It was a sport. It went on and on, days of it. Of you bearing it. Then you were dragged to the centre of town, where droids from all over the galaxy were transmitting the holo of what they did to you. Everyone, everywhere saw it. They chained you upright to a stake and burnt you alive," The words came out rushed and short. He felt breathless after they left him. 

Hux stared at him through the slowly turning stars. His mouth was slightly open. 

"I didn't see you die," Kylo went on. He felt slightly reckless now that the weight of the visions were clawing their way out of him, "I watched you burn. I watched you look for me, look for Phasma. I saw you enduring torture and humiliation and ridicule while patiently knowing that I would come for you. That you were safe, really, because I would come for you. You died," Kylo went on, sounding almost accusatory now, "every time I slept, every time I meditated. I saw you realize, every time, that no one was coming for you. I felt that agony for you." 

Kylo had sat bolt upright and swung around to face Hux. He was leaning forwards with his hands on his knees. Hux stared back at him, wordless. 

"And," Kylo felt his world tipping, something beyond recklessness rushing him along now, "I never saw myself there." He felt his voice hitch. His hands closed into fists. "I never saw what I knew must happen. I knew if you were taken I would be ordered to collect you. When I met Costa, when he told me you were stricken from record and that there was no action being taken on your behalf, I understood why you died alone." 

Kylo wasn't sure when he'd closed his eyes. He opened them to look down, his damaged hands gripping his knees.  Hux's fingers were barely touching the edge of his wrist. He glanced up; Hux was leaning forwards, his elbows on his knees, his head slightly cocked. He looked alarmed, and slightly confused, but not really upset by the information. 

Kylo subsided slightly. He didn't have words for this. Couldn't explain why the betrayal felt personal, even though it came from Snoke. It was nothing Hux would want to hear anyway. 

"So you came?" Hux prompted quietly. "Because you saw that? Kylo, you've seen worse, you've done worse. Why," Hux's voice was quiet, but firm, "why did my future, possible agony prompt so much action?"

Kylo stared into Hux's eyes and his mouth filled with words he couldn't say. He looked down at his hands. In the dim, omnipresent glow of the star chart, Hux's skin looked faintly luminescent, the tips of his first fingers just touching Kylo's wrist. 

Stupidly, moving blindly, Kylo turned his hand and caught Hux's wrist. With the back of his hand resting on his knee, he gently held Hux's hand. His skin was surprisingly warm, and Kylo's long fingers fit easily around it. 

"I didn't want you to die," Kylo said to their hands. "I don't want you to die." 

The weight of Hux's hand increased slightly as Hux relaxed into Kylo's gentle grip. "You were idiotic. Your actions couldn't have been more reckless or counterproductive. There were so many other things you could have done." His voice was flat calm, carefully, infuriatingly blank, "You had other options."

"No I didn't," Kylo snapped. He leant away all at once, pulling his hands away. 

Hux held onto him, his grip tightening on Kylo's wrist with surprising strength.

That stopped him cold. Hux was still calmly looking at their joined hands as though idly wondering how they got like that. 

"You were idiotic," Hux said quietly. 

"You're convinced I'm idiotic anyway," Kylo said, carefully settling his hands back on his knees. He slowly wrapped his fingers around Hux's wrist again, and held on. "That's hardly a revelation." 

"Hardly," Hux agreed. He was still looking at their hands, still leaning into Kylo's space, still had his elbows on his knees. Still letting Kylo cradle his narrow wrists in his hands. Still holding onto him. 

"You said before, that you wanted to run from Snoke," Hux said in a low voice. "That that was part of what let you defy him and come for me." 

Kylo remembered that conversation, and instantly felt on edge. It had been easy to lie to Hux then. "You doubt that?"

"Not now. But you didn't want to run from Snoke before." Hux hesitated, then went on, "You were ready to obey him, when he ordered you to kill me. You knew that you couldn't go back to him after you destroyed the holoring." 

"Wait, no, you were sure," Kylo said, slightly alarmed. He looked up at Hux, but Hux was still just staring at their joined hands. "You knew I couldn't kill you back then though. You said that to Snoke." 

"I didn't want you to kill me," Hux said, "but I didn't know if you would or not." 

"You bluffed," Kylo suddenly felt his certainty drop out from under him. Hux had simply said that Kylo wouldn't kill him. He hadn't believed that himself. "Hux, I nearly killed you." Kylo hung his head. His free hand came up to cover his face, his hair hanging down around him. He shuddered. He'd been so close to carving Hux in half instead of the holoring. And Hux's certainty that he wouldn't had been what had turned his sabre aside. 

"You didn't," Hux said. "I told you you need authority."

Unbelievably, Kylo felt Hux's hand on his head, stroking his hair back. He didn't move, barely breathed. Afraid any movement would break this connection.

"I thought you would kill me, and a week before, under any other circumstances, I would have said it was a certainty," Hux went on, "but you had already given up so much, and been so stupid, and protected me for so long. I wasn't sure of anything anymore." 

Kylo stayed very still as Hux's hand ran through his hair, then made a fist, and tugged Kylo's head gently up. 

"You," Hux said, looking at Kylo with perfect sincerity, "won't hurt me. I know that." 

Kylo realized he'd been holding his breath, and let it out slowly. 

"I couldn't," Kylo said, feeling pained. "I couldn't. Even before. Even if he'd ordered me to kill you before. I don't think I could have." 

He couldn't say why, and Hux didn't press him. Instead, he slid his hand out of Kylo's hair and brushed his own hair off his forehead. 

"You used Force Lightning," Hux said distantly, "just before you passed out." 

"Yes," Kylo couldn't think of any other thing it could have possibly been. There was nothing else to explain it.

"I understood that it was nearly impossible, that there were only a few who could do it," Hux went on. 

"That's true." Kylo wondered if those others felt like this after they had discovered it. Like whatever made them who they were had woken up from a long life of dozing peacefully. Like suddenly your entire soul was wide awake and burning. He still felt it. Like a beast in his chest, clawing to get outside of him. 

"Does it always look like that?" Hux asked distantly. 

"Like what?" It had looked like lightning. 

"Like phosphorescence. So white it looked red because it burnt your eyes. I read that Palpatine could prerform Force lightning, and his was purple." Hux sounded almost conversational. Kylo wondered if Hux was as much in awe of the power as he was. 

"Not sure," Kylo admitted. "Finn hit Phasma," he added. It felt like a question, and Hux answered him. 

"Doubt that will slow her down." Hux ran his free hand through his hair. It was longer than Kylo remembered it being, or maybe just more noticeable now that it was loose, floppy and unstyled.

"Also her shuttle exploded?" That was a question. 

Hux scratched his cheek, the few days of beard on his chin rasped. "I gave orders to Poe," Hux said reluctantly. "It was going to take too long to charge Seafarer on her own, and I knew what Phasma could do with even two thirds of the troops she assumed she'd have. I've studied what she studied, her simulations and her practicals. She's a brilliant battle-master. But she can't deviate from orders, even assumed ones. I sent Poe to steal the backup power cells she would have to have onboard as per regulation. He said he could swim it. And I told him to bring a measure of explosives when he went aboard." 

"Poe boarded Phasma's shuttle?" Kylo blinked. "And didn't take the opportunity to steal it?" 

"He wouldn't risk leaving Finn; the explosives seemed like a compromise we could all enjoy." 

They sat quietly for a while, both of them looking down at their joined hands. Kylo brushed his thumb over the back of Hux's wrist. 

"I did enjoy watching it explode," Kylo assented. 

"I enjoyed thinking of her hitching a ride out on one of the troop transports," Hux agreed. He was quiet for a time, then went on, "She'll have reported our location." He was tracing the long lines on the insides of Kylo's wrist with the tip of his first finger. "Poe's fairly sure the non-essential craft from the blockade have been deployed to hunt us. When we come out of hyperspace, we're going to hide in one of the Resistance bolt holes." 

Kylo didn't say anything. Hux was the tactical genius and they both knew the odds of survival for a single craft fleeing from a First Order hunting party. 

"Did you see this?" Hux said, he sounded almost plaintive. "Did you see us die?" 

Kylo tried to phrase his answer, but the only thing he said was, "Not like this." 

Hux looked up from their hands and Kylo blinked at him. He hadn't realized how close they were until they were face to face like this. Neither of them lent away. 

"I saw us die in battle," Kylo said quietly. "A huge battle."

"With what troops," Hux snorted and shook his head. His hand tightened on Kylo's wrist and he looked down at it, as though still perplexed. 

"Hey," Finn was leaning in the open door to their cabin, one arm in a sling. "Poe's coming out of hyperspace near a relay tower. He's going to contact the General." 

"You," Kylo said, feeling an unexpected relief as he looked Finn over, "are without a doubt the hardiest stormtrooper I've ever even heard of." 

Finn barely smiled back at him. "Fortunately for both of us." 

In the cockpit, Poe's hair was still wet as he pulled the throttle down and brought them out of hyperspace. A golden and black planet suddenly jerked into place below them and Poe tipped them down. When they were low enough to skim into the golden clouds above the surface of a black ocean on the planet, Poe dove into the atmosphere, and relaxed slightly. 

"There's a relay tower here. The general and I agreed that we would use this one for a distress line; she'll be waiting for this channel to seek her out." He slowed Seafarer until the golden clouds around them stopped streaming past. He flipped through into the communications array and tapped a familiar green button. 

Kylo suddenly felt sick. He had less to say to his mother now than he had when they'd last spoken. He had nothing to say, he wasn't ready. 

Leia Organa sprang up before them, a foot high hologram on the console, in her fatigues and her braided hair in a crown around her head. She looked out at each of them in turn. 

"You all look like hell,” her voice came over the little speaker.

"Thank you, General," Kylo replied before he could stop himself.

"Ben, I'm astounded you're all still alive, especially you in fact. Whatever you did on Efir II nearly made me pass out. I don't know what's happened on your end, but we have information you need and I only have a few minutes." 

Kylo felt the unease in his stomach claw up his throat as his mother hesitated. 

"Captain Phasma has been promoted to General and is mobilizing the entirety of the First Order troops. She's mustering in core First Order territory and we believe she will strike from there towards any planets bucking under her authority. It's going to be a witch hunt, and she's gunning for you.

“She's issued orders that those planets who do not immediately submit to her authority and present troops to aid the First Order will be treated as enemy states and their capitols razed. I have no idea if she'll find you, but the blockade has been recalled to proceed to the muster with vigilance, and in a few hours, they'll be over your heads and scanning for you. This entire system is about to burn. 

“You're trapped in a vise," Leia said bluntly. "You've got a few days between the blockade and the core of First Order controlled space. If you make it through them, you can make it days or weeks before they catch up." 

"What about you?" Poe sat bolt upright, "What about the base?"

"Mobilizing. It's being stripped and abandoned," Leia replied shortly, "We're running. C3PO estimates that we can survive for a year before casualties become catastrophic and we suffer a loss of core systems and command structure break down." 

Poe dropped his face into his hands, and his fingers clenched into his hair. Finn tucked one foot up onto the co-pilot's seat, hugging his knee to his chest and looking blankly out at the clouds. 

"If we turned ourselves over to them," Hux said quietly, "do you believe she'd be satisfied with that?" 

"You would be," Leia replied. "So would I. But I doubt if the capture of you two, or even the four of you, will stabilize the First Order or show its power. They've lost too much authority. Word's gotten out about what you've done, Ben. The First Order can't keep burning through their generals and expect people not to notice the vulnerability." 

The four of them, and the little hologram of General Organa sat silent for a while. On the console, Finn shifted his hand, his little finger just touching Poe's. 

Kylo looked past the image of his mother and out into the gold and orange clouds around them. Hux shifted slightly, standing closer to him. 

"Poe, Finn, it's been a privilege and an honour," Leia said heavily. "General Hux, I find I'm sorry we won’t meet in person." She hesitated, "Ben." 

Poe took Finn's hand suddenly, and together they stood and slipped past Kylo and Hux, clearing the cockpit. Kylo left Hux standing in the door and dropped into the pilot's seat, turning it to study the hologram of his mother. 

"Ben," Leia said again, "I love you, and there's so much more I want to say, so much I've wanted to tell you, share with you. Fifteen years of lost time, but I won't get to hold you again, or straighten your hair, or make you stoop so I can give you a kiss, or teach you anything, so you just have to listen when I tell you now, alright?" She took a breath and it shook as she let it out. "I love you, you're my son, and I'm sorry." 

Kylo dropped his face into his hands. "How can you say that?" 

"I'm an honest woman," his mother replied briefly. "Ben, look at me."

He did, feeling like a child as he peeked at her over his hands. 

"I can't come and get you this time. So often I couldn't because I thought it was what was best for you, but now, when I want so badly to come for you, and pick you up and wrap my arms around you and cover you in kisses and hold you somewhere you'll be safe from everyone, I can't. And it's agony, for both of us. So you just have to know, that I'm sorry, and I wish I was with you now." 

Kylo pushed his hands through his hair a few times. "You abandoned me," he said at length. 

"It was cruel," Leia replied, not shrinking from her son's words. "And stupid. I wasn't the parent you needed. Neither of your parents were who you needed. We let you down." 

The words felt like a blow to the gut, and Kylo looked up at his mother. 

"I've had fifteen years to micromanage my own failures, and think of how unhappy and scared and lost you must have felt," Leia went on. "I've had a long time to understand how grossly I misunderstood my roll as your mother." 

"I'm going to die, aren't I?" Kylo said. the words came out without him wanting them and they sounded childish. For the first time he'd ever seen it, his mother really hesitated. 

"You're a Jedi," his mother said after a moment, "They never die." 

"I'm not." Kylo shook his head. "How did you survive?" It was a stupid question that came out suddenly. He had the answer in any legend or historical data disk.

"I had your father." 

Kylo flinched, but his mother went on. 

"And your uncle, and Lando. Mostly, I had myself, and the droids, and the Force. When that failed I had luck, a willingness to kill, and politics, which turned out to be far more deadly. We're in a war. Life is messy, and costly, and brutal, and you don't get to keep it unless you're willing to bare your teeth and kill. You know that." 

Kylo stared down at his hands. 

"Ben, you look at me." 

Reluctantly, Kylo dragged his gaze up to rest on the little figure of his mother. She was so powerful, so assured. She'd been a pillar to everyone who'd known her all her life. He'd been like clinging ivy. 

"I don't have much more time. They're powering down the station to pack it up now that I've given you our news. So I'll only say this once and you've just got to believe me. I don't have time for driving it through your thick skull by repetition. You're powerful, you're not alone, and you have a reason to live. That's all the conviction you need." She looked out at him steadily from the other side of space. Powerful and sad and earnest, leaning forward slightly towards him. 

"I miss you," Kylo whispered. He reached out, like he could scoop the tiny image of his mother into his hands and keep her safe. 

"Oh, Ben," His mother reached out to him, a brief, hopeless gesture. "I miss you too. I'm sorry." 

Kylo opened his mouth to reply, to say something, anything, one of the thousands of things he needed to tell her, had to say. Then the transmission flickered and died abruptly, and he felt like he'd been run through by her sudden absence. Childish and familiar, the agony of her abandonment ripped through him. 

The golden clouds outside of their view port shone down on him and Kylo felt hollowed out and weak in the beautiful silence. 

Wordlessly, Hux slid into the co-pilot's seat and they sat side by side. 

"We've got hours," Hux said quietly. "Poe says there's scouts everywhere. Revivalists and First Order. He's up in the port gunner's saddle with Finn, trying to map a way through them." 

Kylo turned the chair around until he faced Hux, "Any thoughts, General?"

"I have no army, no fighters, no command centre, no charts, no ideas," Hux studied the gold and orange clouds. Kylo studied his profile. The light was warm and shadowless, and his beard and hair were shining. "I am no general. I'm going to die in space, inglorious and unmourned," Hux went on blankly. "Of all the ways I could have died, this was an outside chance. Dying in battle, or by assassination, those were far more likely." 

"I could kill you now," Kylo said, stifling a smile and watching Hux, "if it would make you feel better about your maudlin predictions." 

"Would you?" 

"No." 

"Even now at the end of our lives you refuse to accept my authority," Hux tipped his head to look at Kylo, and there was almost a smile there.

"You'd think less of me if I catered to your megalomania," Kylo replied. 

"I miss having an army," Hux said. He was studying Kylo's face, his scar, the scuffed and dirty clothes. In the golden light of the clouds swirling before them, his eyes were very bright, and Kylo could see a few freckles over his cheek. "Where would you be?" Hux mused, "You were never part of my army." 

"Protecting you," Kylo said immediately. 

"Waste of resources," Hux snorted. "You should be in the thick of battle, controlling things." 

Kylo shook his head. "I'd be at your side." 

Hux tipped his leg so it rested against Kylo's. Facing one another, they studied the other carefully. It felt like the last time they'd see each other intact. Before them, Seafarer nosed out of a cloud and hung over a huge golden desert. Sunshine so hot it felt like it had weight to it shone into the cockpit and as Kylo looked on, Hux blazed radiant red and gold. Kylo's breath caught and his heart skipped a beat looking at him. 

"The Revivalists," said Kylo. 

"Sure," Hux blinked in the dazzling light and turned his face into it, shutting his eyes. 

Kylo could see the light catching on his eyelashes and glinting. His hair and beard shone.

"The Revivalists have an army. They have fighters and they have a command centre. They have less time to live than any other force in the galaxy." 

Hux opened his eyes. For a moment, he stared blankly up into the sun. Then he turned to face Kylo, his face calm, his eyes bright, the pupils so tiny they were nearly gone. 

Kylo didn't know why he'd said that, but the words had come easily to him. Like firing at a target that wasn't there yet. Like turning around to find Phasma behind them. Like taking Hux's hand in his. 

"The Revivalists have a weapon that can cut through a battle cruiser," Hux said, in a distant, distracted voice, like someone trying to remember something they’d never learned well. 

Quietly, not wishing to break whatever train of thought was occupying Hux's mind, Kylo took the opportunity to study Hux in the sunshine. 

"Poe," Hux said conversationally, "Finn." 

He stood abruptly and Kylo jumped up to follow him, but Hux hadn't moved, so he simply stood up into Hux's space, the two of them face to face. They'd been like this before, so many times when they'd been at each other’s throats in their rivalry to be of use to Snoke. Without Snoke between them however, it occurred to Kylo just how little space there was. 

Hux gripped the front of Kylo's shirt, and Kylo stopped breathing. Hux hadn't blinked, and was staring up at him with the same light-eyed intensity he'd looked at the light of the Starkiller's blast. 

"You said you'd stay by my side," Hux spoke low. 

"Yes," Kylo reached up, covering Hux's hands with his own. 

Hux nodded, some tension Kylo didn't know the source of running out of him. 

Then Hux looked away, pulled his hands back and turned out the door. Kylo closed his empty hands into fists and after a moment, followed him. 

Poe and Finn had been sitting in the bottom of one of the gunner's bubbles, side by side with their legs tangled together, heads tipped against one another, golden clouds above and below them. They climbed out reluctantly when Hux called them, and then stood tensing and leaning forward in incredulity by degrees until Poe was bending at the waist, tipped forward at about forty five degrees with his arms cross and his mouth hanging open. 

"You," Poe deadpaned, after Hux had finished, "want to run into the armed force of the Revivalists. A force which, I might add, destroyed your ship, killed about five thousand of your people, captured and tortured you. And you want to steal them, and use them as a force to defend against the First Order." 

"Force the First Order into submission. Yes," Hux said bluntly. 

"Alright, I'm not sure how you wanted to die but that honestly wouldn't have made the top ten list." Poe blinked a few times and stood upright. 

They were standing, all four of them, in the space between the two gunner's ports, while 2x4 waited with increasing impatience to treat Hux, Finn and Kylo. 

"I know where their base is," Hux said, as a flat statement of fact. "Poe can take us there. The First Order is still mustering, but Phasma will have to come for us if she knows where we are. She won't wait for more troops. We've escaped twice from her, literally out from under her authority. She won't wait; she'll have to act, especially if she has the main armada. She can't let us go unchecked any longer. You heard General Organa, word is spreading about the First Order losing control." 

"She might not be able to bring that kind of fight," Poe interjected. "You said Finn hit her." 

Finn and Hux exchanged a glance with Kylo. They were all three of them perfectly aware how much damage Phasma had taken over her eventful career as the chromium-tipped edge of the First Order's entire fighting force. 

Poe looked from Hux to Kylo and back, then ran a hand through his hair and looked at Finn. 

"Are we still going to die?" Finn looked at Kylo. 

So did Poe, so did Hux. Under the combined weight of their unblinking stares, Kylo suddenly felt horribly exposed. He fought to keep his hands away from his face. 

"Yes," he said after a moment. Finn and Poe stood a little closer together, and Hux rubbed the bandage around his neck. 

"But," Kylo forced himself to go on, "I've seen us die before. Every time we've fought, we could have died and I saw it." 

Poe cocked his head a little to one side, "You lead a charmed life, don't you." 

"Poe?" Finn looked away from Hux and Kylo, watching the pilot carefully. "I'm not going back to the First Order." 

"Yeah, buddy, I know," Poe looked at Finn, then couldn't seem to take his eyes off him. Like he was the most beautiful thing in the galaxy. 

Kylo glanced at Hux and then away. He stood a little straighter. 

"They're not going to want to help us," he said. 

"They're going to want to survive," Hux said flatly, "People who are terrified are always easier to control. They'll fall into line." 

"We are pretty great," Poe said, managing to tear his gaze off Finn. "Honestly. No one is more surprised than I to include you two assholes in that ranking but I wholeheartedly do. However, the furious and bloodthirsty remnants of the recently destroyed Republic are not, in fact, going to be impressed. And they will not be terrified of us."

"They'll be terrified if we're leading an armada," Hux replied. 

"Armada? We're going to the Revivalists to gain an armed force, where are you going to get an..." Finn trailed off. 

There was a horrible moment as three people all simultaneously realized what Hux was planning. The collective intake of breath should have buckled the life support systems. 

"You want me," Poe said, staring at Hux, "to trip over a First Order scout and lead an attack force of them to the Revivalist headquarters." 

"The First Order armada carries a lot of authority," Hux said, perfectly reasonably, "Even when it's not yours. We bring the First Order to them, and if they cooperate, you and Finn offer them clemency through the Resistance."

"I had no idea Finn and I had that authority. Excellent." Poe grinned a little, "What else can we do?" 

Finn grinned briefly. 

"If the Revivalists have fighters, get them up. Finn, you know how troopers work best. Take their ground crew, arm yourself and get ready for an ambush."

"If we have any time at all we can dig out traps and trenches, make it hard for them to move," Finn volunteered. "Everyone always died in that simulation," he added sourly. 

"And you and Kylo?" Poe didn't sound accusatory, just curious. He really wanted to know what Hux could possibly have in store this time. 

"I'll take their command," Hux said with cool assurance. That Hux would take over the headquarters of the rabid military group that had recently captured and tortured him was a foregone conclusion. "And coordinate Poe and his fighters, and Finn and his ground troops. Kylo," Hux hesitated for barely a moment, "will hunt for Phasma. She's too much of a symbol to leave on the field. And if she's injured she'll have her guard with her. She has to be neutralized before the sheer numbers overwhelm us." 

Kylo's jaw set. That was not what he and Hux had agreed on, and it wasn't happening.

There was a silence. It stretched too long, and Kylo seethed with silent fury. A light in the bulkhead flickered and hissed.

"You sure about that?" Finn eyed Kylo. 

"I'm not leaving you," Kylo said tightly, "in a room full of the same commanders who I watched burn you alive." 

Poe and Finn went quiet. 

Hux barely missed a beat before he answered, "I have three people I trust in the execution of a coup, siege, and fight to the death. You," he stared Kylo down with icy calm, "are a wasted resource sitting at my side." 

"You need me," Kylo snarled. He rounded on Hux to face him and some burst of Force energy made his hair lift and light crack painfully between his fingers. "You told me before, I have foresight you don't. I can watch, and I can see, and I can protect you." 

"I can protect myself," Hux, fearless in the face of Kylo's rage as he always had been, took a step toward him to square his footing and took a breath to go on. 

"Don't," Poe was suddenly between them. He blocked their line of sight and with only Poe's curly hair to glare at, some of the fight went out of Kylo. 

"Get out of the way," Hux snapped, then was cut off by Finn.

"Hux," Finn explained patently, "Kylo's staying with you." 

Hux rounded on Finn then, taking a step back from Poe.  Kylo blinked in amazement at support from this unexpected quarter.

"He's not going to let you out of his sight," Poe said. "That's obvious. So plan around that." 

Hux glared between Finn and Poe, then forced a breath out. 

"Regardless of Kylo Ren's asinine interpretation of his role here," Hux said shortly, "we need to move fast. The more time the First Order has to marshal their people, the less chance we'll have." 

"The Revivalists are going to be slaughtered," Poe said. The words dropped into a silence that spread between the four of them. "I mean, I don't have a better idea, but it needs to be said. We're using an already decimated population as a meat shield." 

"Remorselessly," Hux said coldly, "in my case." 

He was idly tapping the bandage around his neck, as though the slashes and cuts and holes under it itched. 

"They're a military force that's actively trying to destabilize things more than they already are." Finn shook his head as though to rid himself of something in it. "They already have. They're armed and have nothing to lose." 

Kylo doubted that. There was always more to lose. 

"Poor bastards," Poe muttered, but he stood a little straighter. "I'll get started. We have to follow a dog-leg to get out of this planet's moons so it'll take a while. Hux, you give me coordinates. You three, see Two by Four before the sweet thing tranqs you so it can deal with your injuries."

Poe slipped his hand out of Finn's, and Kylo had no idea when he'd taken it. 

Kylo looked away. "You go," He cocked his head at Finn as Poe jumped the step into the cockpit and settled into the pilot's seat. Finn glanced at Hux, then turned to 2x4 and allowed the little droid to lead him away. 

"Kylo," Hux said with quiet fury. 

Seafarer was tiny, and Kylo knew every inch of it after the last few wild days. There was nowhere to hide. That didn't mean much to Kylo, he turned and abruptly left Hux standing in the companionway alone. 

He shut the door of their little cabin behind him and yanked himself one handed into his bunk and twitched the little curtain closed. In the darkness, and with his eyes closed, Kylo sat with his back to the bulkhead, cradling his left hand. 

The light that had cracked between his fingers was still singing in his palm. It felt like the way a glowing ember looked, and made his chest feel like a forge. He was too hot under his skin and the power that had always been so surly and wordless inside him felt eager suddenly, somehow eloquent. There were new cuts on his hand, tiny red star bursts between his fingers. 

Silence fell around him. No one opened the door to their cabin. No one yelled for him. No alarms went off. Time slipped.  


He closed his right hand over his left, slumped down in bed, and waited for the next vision to rise around him. Some new horror that would grab him by the hair and force his head under, force him to watch Hux die in some new nightmare. 

"If you're finished hiding under your blankets," Hux's voice said icily. "I demand to know why you're breaking your promise to follow my orders." 

Kylo jerked out of an uneasy doze, closed his left hand more tightly. The motion of the ship had changed, and when Hux yanked aside the curtain, his bandages were clean and new. 

No new vision had come to him. He unexpectedly felt a dull fear. It was as though suddenly, there was no future to see. 

"We had an arrangement," Hux said coldly.

"I'm not sure why you're so astonished. You took it upon yourself to disregard my directions to stay put while you were having a rib reattached." 

Hux waved that aside. "You don't have the tactical genius required to usurp my position as the commander. Nor the medical training to tell me what I can do post surgery." 

"I think getting a rib wired together qualifies for some recovery time," Kylo sat up a little straighter, and swung his legs over the edge of his bunk to sit with his elbows on his knees. 

Hux stood below him furious and cold, looking up into his face. "That's fine for troopers. And I made the right decision; we would have all died under the waterfall if I hadn't been with you." 

"So what will happen if I'm not with you in the Revivalist's headquarters?" It was a cheap come back. But Hux glared like a school boy at Kylo with his arms crossed. 

"It's a waste for you not to be in the battle. I don't want you with me," Hux growled out after a while.

Kylo shifted and hopped down from his bunk, landing in Hux's space. Neither of them backed down. Neither of them had ever backed down from the other. They just glared at one another now as they always had, with so much less to lose, and so much already behind them. 

Kylo closed the distance between them.

It was surprising, somehow, how easy this came to him, some dim part of his mind a little shocked at how close they were. His hand felt too big on the back of Hux's neck. Hux's hair was silky and fine between his fingers, 

Hux's mouth was hot under his. 

For weeks, Kylo had been watching Hux die. Tormented and screaming, terrified and in agony, and always, always looking for Kylo, Hux had died. Yet here was the scuff of his beard and the heat of his skin and the size and weight and strength of his body as Kylo bullied him back against the wall. He was here, and whole, reassuringly alive. Hux was going to live through this, he had to. 

"Kylo," Hux snarled, he gasped in a breath, shuddering. 

Kylo gasped, stumbling back as Hux grabbed him by the front of his uniform and shoved. 

They stood panting, Hux against the wall, holding the front of Kylo's uniform in both balled fists and Kylo leaning against the bunks, wide eyed and perfectly still. 

"What are you doing?" Hux finally said. He was so tense he was shivering. His voice was so soft Kylo wasn't sure if he'd spoken. 

"I'm not sure how many ways you could interpret what that was," Kylo spat. 

"Then why, you obtuse, obstreperous..." Hux hissed. 

"I want you to live," Kylo cut him off, "And not just for your own sake." 

"Don't make my well-being about you," Hux snapped. His hands tightened in Kylo's clothes. "Everything is about you. All I can think about. And whatever you think entitles you to feel whatever the hell you think you feel about me..." He broke off, suddenly, and unexpectedly without anything to say. 

"It's you, Hux," Kylo said softly, after a few moments. 

Hux's gaze was flicking around the room, unable to settle. He didn't speak. 

After a few quiet, agonizing moments, Kylo went on, "You've asked me before why I came for you. This is why. You're doubting my sincerity about staying with you. And you were right, you have to rely on the decisions I make. So rely on me when I tell you that I am going to protect you. Regardless of how much you hate me for it." 

Kylo held perfectly still. Hux hadn't taken his hands from Kylo's shirt front. 

"You saw me die," Hux said, he shook his head, "That's all. This isn't real. This is just confirmation bias. Injured pride." 

Kylo snorted. "You're not worthy of attempting a ditch like that. Watching you die made me kill a general and leave the Order. Hux," Kylo stopped himself from reaching out. Hux was a flight risk. "I watched you die alone over and over. Every single time, you waited for me to come. You died looking for me and I never, never came for you in those nightmares. All the times I should have. Now that we  _ are  _ going to die here, I'm not leaving you. I’m not going to let you die waiting for me." 

Hux met Kylo's gaze and some of the tension he'd been carrying dropped very slightly out of his shoulders. 

"I have to steal, and lead, an army. I have to survive the First Order and the Revivalists. I have you, and Finn, and Poe and my own half-broken body. I have to give us a chance to survive this. I have to lead you. This isn't happening, this can't be happening now. What you saw, and whatever you feel," Hux deliberately took his hands from the front of Kylo's shirt, "can't be my problem." 

Kylo felt the words, the distance between them, the dismissal like a iron bar across his chest. He stopped one hand before he could cover his face. 

If Hux saw the quick, aborted little gesture, he didn't remark on it. 

"Do you believe me?" Kylo asked softly when he could speak again.

"I'm not articulating this," Hux said, he moved like a trapped bird, not fidgeting, but unsettled. "Whatever it is." 

"Fine. But do you believe it," Kylo asked again. He was perfectly still. "Why I'm going to stay with you? I don't care if you hate me for it. I need you to know it's real. It's real for me, anyway."

Hux glanced up at Kylo, sharp, intelligent eyes that had never flinched, never backed down. He nodded. 

Kylo eased past Hux and out into the little mess. The viewport was a wash of light as they fell through hyperspeed. Poe had his feet on the console. He could just see Finn in the co-pilot seat, hand in hand with Poe. The two of them were talking softly. 

"Human Designated Human Disaster," 2x4's prim little voice chirped beside him. "You have new injuries on your left hand. Additionally, your existing injuries may be treated now." 

Kylo nodded, and went quietly with the little droid, sat obedient and quiet as 2x4 checked his face, his side, the slashes in his shoulder and leg. They were close to healed now, close enough that the pain they still caused him was probably illusory. He held his hands out to the droid and let it clean the new cuts and glue them shut. 

After making an amazingly impertinent remark on his slow heart rate and low levels of brain activity, 2x4 left Kylo more or less alone. After it was finished, 2x4 quietly chirped and went into sleep mode about five minutes before Kylo realized he could lower his hands.  His face was wet and he didn't realized until he hopped off the examination table and tears dripped onto his chest.

Carefully, Kylo eased out of the little med bay, and passed through the mess. Glancing into the cockpit, he saw Poe and Finn sharing the pilot's seat, their feet jumbled comfortably together on the console. The wash of blue and white starlight made the ship seem unreal somehow, dreamlike. He wondered if that was all this was, another damn vision he couldn't shake, the first one he could feel his own pain in, instead of Hux's. 

He gave the idea up after a hopeful little moment, and closed the door of their cabin behind him. Hux was on his side, his bare back pale and freckled and patched with medical tape and bandages. Dark lines of healing scars stood out almost black on his white skin. Kylo wordlessly climbed past him into his own bunk, flopped back and realized after he reached out for it, that the little marble star chart he'd been playing was gone. 

Dropped into the folds of his bunk, or lost after the wild maneuvers Poe had put the Seafarer through today. He didn't bother to look, just sat up and rummaged in the dark through his things until he found a new one at random. He dropped it into the reader and lay back as the star system exploded around him. 

Like nothing mattered. He was so small, and the stars would burn for millennia after he'd died tomorrow.

Kylo lay on his back and watched the stars shining above him. 

He hoped Hux felt like a god. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: July 7, 2016, edits for readability, grammer, consistency, style and everything else my amazing reader Windlion saves me from. Only about 18 months late. Also John Masefield.  
> I hope you enjoy this <3

Despite Hux's exasperated and perfectly accurate prediction that the longer they waited the more cohesive the First Order would be, Poe held off. He kept the ship  drifting invisibly through space, just ahead of the homeward bound First Order blockade. 

Instead of running, Poe requested 2x4 break open their most advanced healing supplies available. The droid eagerly agreed, and laid into Finn and Hux with far greater treatments than they'd been able to provide prior. Hux passed out cold after four hours with the little droid working on him, and slept nearly as long as Finn did.

Poe and Kylo spent most of their time sitting in the cockpit with their feet on the console, eating their way through most of the Republican rations they had left and trading prefered sweets. Poe enjoyed the little marble star charts that Kylo showed him, and immediately found one that showed their current system. They spent a strangely contented few hours as Poe showed Kylo basics of covert navigation, and how Kylo could plot a course through the stars.

"What are you grinning at?" Poe asked, catching Kylo's expression. 

Kylo abruptly dragged his face back into order, and thought about his answer quietly. He traced his finger through the stars, and a fine red line followed the tip of his finger. The course they'd taken so far was like a red thread that wove between the stars.

Poe was holding the star chart steady, both hands raised to keep it from resuming its natural spin. He waited in comfortable silence for Kylo to formulate an answer. 

"I find it strange, and comforting," Kylo said at last, his eyes on his work. "Stars burn for millennia if left to themselves. This chart will be nearly unchanged for generations. But we'll have still been here, seen these stars. Nothing can change that." 

Even if his choices didn't matter, they still had an effect. He smiled gently again at the thought. That he'd left a mark, that he'd had a story. It was almost over. And there was some liberty in being close to death. Kylo was recognizing freedom to enjoy that shortly, it would be a historian's burden to debate his actions. He wouldn't have to for much longer. 

"People will know," Poe said, a little hesitantly, "what you did." 

Kylo froze, and looked looked at him through the stars. "Torturing you will earn at least half a chapter in my history I'm sure." 

Unbelievably, Poe snorted with surprised laughter, losing his grip on the star chart so it began serenely turning around them again. 

"No," Poe caught at the chart, steadying it and looking back at Kylo. "Running. From the First Order and surviving. People know what Finn did. He's not sure how to feel about them, but a lot of Troopers defected, joined up with us or ran."

"Not for much longer," Kylo murmured. He finished his route, the little red line ending at Chitoo Boh and the military headquarters of the Republic Revivalists. "And I ran because of Hux." The honesty of the statement made him ache. "It wasn't through any grand ideals. I still have my own ambitions and certainties. Snoke was the most likely means of achieving them." 

Poe shrugged, "It'll still be known. And don't be too hard on yourself. Finn rescued me because he didn't want to kill for the First Order or go through reconditioning, whatever that is." He paused and went on with a grin, "And he liked the look of me." 

Kylo suppressed a smile, then sat back as Poe released the chart, and it began to turn again. Kylo's charted course was a fine red thread that stitched stars and planets together across the system. They sat back and put their feet on the console, staring up as the miniature stars blended with the distant ones outside the cockpit. 

"It's not what I wanted to be known for," Kylo said thoughtfully. "But I'm not disappointed." 

"That's a grand assertion for you, I'll hold you to it," Poe cocked a grin at him. 

They sat quietly for a time, both of them watching their course line twirl gently above them. 

"You knew I would stay with Hux," Kylo said after a few moments, remembering. "You were ready for that." 

Poe nodded, looking a little sombre. "Finn looked the same way. When I volunteered to fly you, he refused to stay behind." 

Kylo glanced at Poe, who shrugged.

"I told him to stay back. That the mission was dangerous. He pointed out that the last time he'd seen you, you'd killed your father, tried to kill Rey, and very nearly killed him," Poe looked away, his mouth twisting. "He said he knew the risks like I did." 

Kylo didn't apologise for that, and Poe didn't lean on him for it.

"He was very nearly forcibly detained before I said I would withdraw my nomination if they did. That we'd go together. I was against it at first but," Poe shrugged, and his hand tightened suddenly in a abrupt, instinctual clench. "It occurred to me I didn't want to die alone. If this is how I'm going to die, I didn't want to leave him behind." 

"It's not like that with Hux," Kylo said. It felt utterly bizarre to be confessing this, the first time he'd spoken like this aloud, to a man he'd tortured for information. Hardly a winning basis for sympathy. Possibly a better one for context and understanding. Kylo shifted uncomfortably. "We know the other won't abandon us, we know we're stronger together. But I'm not much more than a weapon to him. I’m something he plans around." 

Poe reached up into the chart, and swept his hands through the stars, speeding it's spin briefly. "I'm not sure about that. You know him best, but, you're shit at assuming what people think about you. Way too damn invested in your own opinions to look around. No sense. Can't take advice. Unshakable certainties based on space magic." He paused, "No offense."

"Oh, none taken," Kylo said dryly. Poe snorted again. 

"The General has the same thing, because she can sense things, she relies on it the same as knowledge. But it's not the same as intuition, and it's not the same as experience. She's had years of using it, and of second guessing herself.  You've already figured out what you see, and won't actually look outside your own thick head to see otherwise. You're so sure of yourself, you're blinded by it." 

"I'm not sure of much anymore, really," Kylo murmured. 

"You're sure of what you think you know. That's worse." Poe bounced one foot a little where it rested on the edge of the console. "You were sure we would all die long before now." 

"That's true," Kylo looked up at the stars and the little red line connecting them together. His steps had touched far away places, brought them all in connection with one another. His actions had mattered. 

"Anything can happen," Poe murmured.

 

* * *

The Republicans had been expanding only recently into neighbouring planets. One of their primary raw materials satellites, the resource-focused colony on Chitoo Boh, was mostly forest, farmland, vast freshwater seas and inhospitably savage native species. The people there were established for two generations, and the colony provided the Republic with raw materials and craftsmanship in exchange for their sparklingly advanced technology, education, and citizenship. The Revivalists were a fledgling movement born hours after the destruction of the Republic, and in the days that followed, it grew rapidly, militarized and began disrupting First Order traffic. It would have registered as a suppression priority had the First Order not in fact been dealing with the lost of Starkiller, and massive over crowding on their battle cruisers. 

When Hux crawled out of a medically induced restorative coma a few hours away from their destination, he began laying out the finer points of his plan. It was a good thing, Kylo reflected, listening to Hux talk calmly, the subconscious mind works during sleep. 

During his torture aboard the Corvette, Hux had learned that the military leaders of the Revivalists were more or less civil servants or remnants of a military so obsolete they were ceremonial. However, they had dug themselves in fairly well on Chitoo Boh by the simple expedient of walking into the town hall and ordering its occupants to leave, at gunpoint if necessary. 

"It's surprising that the Revivalists haven't sparked more resistance from their own people," Finn remarked. He was in the co-pilot seat beside Poe, and thoughtfully turned to look back at Hux. "They're not exactly champions of the people." 

Kylo thought of the wildly cheering crowd who had come in droves to watch Hux burn and scowled. He was barely paying attention, and spent most of the time Hux had spoken flicking the star chart sphere around his thumb. 

Hux shrugged. "They're vulnerable and the Revivalists are the strongest thing that isn't the First Order, or the Resistance. They're all they've got." 

"Poor bastards," Poe muttered again. He was carefully flying them through an asteroid field. The rapid shifts of direction, the acceleration and deceleration never felt jarring. Poe seemed perfectly content to dodge and weave through the massive asteroids with cool focus and detachment all day. 

"So how do you want to do this?" Kylo dropped the chart into one of his pockets and looked up. 

Hux shrugged. "Walk in, go to the command, explain the situation and and begin making preparations to receive General Phasma." 

The title wasn't spoken with any particular irony. Kylo frowned. 

"That's it?" Finn looked around at them. 

"I'll have Kylo with me," Hux said smoothly. "You did mention I should plan around that contingency." 

Finn grinned, and swung around to face out at what should have been an alarming field of flying rock and ice. As it was, Poe guided them through it so smoothly it felt almost dull. 

"That's the plan?" Kylo had to confirm. 

"Yes," Hux sounded slightly testy, "I'm not accustomed to being asked to explain my decisions. Walk in. Take command. Receive Phasma." 

"You're keeping me with you," Kylo clarified, talking over Hux. 

Hux went quiet and looked at Kylo squarely in the face for the first time since their argument. Kylo blinked back. 2x4 had taken the bandages off Hux's neck, and without them, the healing wounds were furiously dark red on his skin. A collar of scars that Kylo found difficult to look away from. Up in the cockpit, Poe and Finn went preternaturally silent. Even the asteroids seems to be trying to make this conversation happen smoothly, as Poe had an uneventful straight path to follow through them for a long, long stretch of silence. 

"Yes," Hux said quietly. 

His expression was inscrutable as ever, and Kylo missed his own mask. He clenched his hands at his sides, holding onto the sleeves of his stolen coat, and let out a breath.

"You," Hux said with an effort, "have to stay with me. It's the only way this is going to work. You don't have to say anything. I'll do the talking, you simply bring the diplomacy."

"You're taking me along for my diplomatic skills? I'm flattered," Kylo brightened slightly. Hux had never seemed impressed with his people skills.

"Any other day I'd discourage the idea that I'm going to need or want you or your skills but today," Hux paused, and idly rubbed his neck. The scars seemed to itch. "Today I'm going to ask you to bring your particular talent for diplomacy to the fore." 

"If you could just for a moment forego all inferences and implications just so that I can hear you say..." 

Hux huffed and rolled his eyes very briefly. "Kill anyone who stands in my way without hesitation." 

Hearing it aloud was deeply satisfying. Kylo wasn't sure what he'd expected but honestly this was better. 

"Understand?" Hux said a little sharply, staring at Kylo with hawkish focus. 

Kylo nodded, "Perfectly." He was still slightly unable to believe this. He hadn't expected Hux to take this course of action, one that suited Kylo perfectly. 

Hux seemed to relax slightly. Pulling his hand away from his neck he turned to Poe and Finn. 

"You two, find the pilots and the ground troops; you'll know the signs, where to look. Stand by for the alert and assert your personalities. Poe, get whatever they have for fighters up in the air. Finn, get the infantry to start making traps, trenches or laying out barricades."

"I'm also going to be signaling for land-based evacuation, empty the town of people. Most of the folks there are farmers and fishermen and foresters or miners. They can live rough if the city's wrecked." Poe said this lightly, though his tone implied very definitely that it would come down pretty heavy on Hux if he disagreed. 

"Certainly," Hux waved aside the prevention of massive civilian casualties, "Make it clear that they're far safer away from the Revivalists." 

Poe and Finn both nodded in equable understanding, and Finn looked away from them out into the asteroid field.  Kylo looked back to Hux. 

"I'm your weapon," Kylo felt the need to clarify that point. It was one he felt keenly about. 

Hux looked back up at him. He looked calm, pale after his enforced rest but more whole. His pale eyes looked over Kylo as if sizing him up, and a tiny smug smile flicked up the corner of his mouth. Apparently the hours before nearly certain death were going to be as much fun as he could make them. Kylo got the sense Hux was letting himself off leash. "Yes, you are." 

Kylo found himself breath out. It felt awkward standing so close to Hux. The hunger Kylo had been hiding and fighting for so long was out in the open between them and nothing had changed, it didn’t matter to anyone but Kylo after all. But Hux’s confidence was reassuring, and whatever happened, it was happening to all of them.

"Found it," Poe said happily. "I've never tripped one of these before. Should be fun." 

Ahead of them in the asteroid field, a lone, lost little First Order scout droid hovered and dodged anxiously amid the asteroids. It must have been trapped for some time, its fellows having all moved on. This was the only one Poe had been able to find in this part of space, and for the first time, it was a welcome sight. The droid, its glossy black carapace dusty and glazed with powdered ice, turned towards them, and perked up with endearing triumph. All its sensors flashed white for a moment. 

Seafarer gave a brief alarm, as though the inaugural instance of getting caught by a First Order scout required an alarm, but the civility did not require it to be jarring. Poe barked out a laugh and whirled away through the asteroid field, the scout leaned in to chase behind him, following close. Poe accelerated, weaving between ice and rock and glinting dust, and in minutes, shot out into clear empty space and shining stars. Seafarer gave another mock formal alarm to report the newly freed scout had locked on their course, and was transmitting it to the First Order. Finn laughed, and Hux and Kylo shared a brief little grin. 

Poe hit the hyper-drive, and they shot through space towards Chitoo Boh. 

 

* * *

They came out of hyper-drive at the edge of orbit around a mountainous green planet with wide seas and stripes of bare earth where the vast forest had been clear cut. Poe skimmed low over the forest and Hux pointed him over the ridge of one range of low, blasted mountains towards the capitol. 

It had been leveled. The capitol city of Chitoo Boh had been small, a market town adjacent to warehouses and a shipping port for the Republican cargo ships to ferry goods and raw materials off planet. It was a razed, smoking ruin now. 

"Did Phasma beat us to the planet?" Poe asked, slowly flying them around the perimeter of the city in a careful circle. 

Finn, Kylo and Hux shook their heads. 

"She would have had a presence here if she had, we wouldn't have gotten close," Finn explained. 

"The town hall is untouched," Hux remarked. 

The base for the Revivalist Authority was a glorious Old Republican-style hall. Two wings that came out in a curve surrounding a circular courtyard with a trampled garden and a broken fountain at its centre. The main part of the hall rose in a stone tower, shining with glass and covered in climbing greenery. The little town that should have been before the open courtyard was just a swath of scorched black rubble. From their respectful distance, they could see soldiers on the ground, jogging and training and working away. 

"Unregistered fighter, identify yourself. We are prepared to fire with lethal force." 

Poe and Finn started as the comm snapped abruptly to life as the were leaning over it. 

"It's for you." Finn immediately passed the receiver to to Hux. 

"This is Kel Chet and survivors of the Republican Corvette Firelight. We are acting under the mandate left to us by Commander Obel," Hux said with perfect poise and without a shred of hesitation.

"Keep distance and await response," the voice on the comm scrambled to reply, losing his hostility at once.

Silence filled the Seafarer.  

"What," Kylo said flatly.

"The ship you cut a hole in," Hux said, toying with the inactive and silent comm. 

"And who..." 

"Obel was the one you impaled," Hux went on, he was fingering the edges of the scar on his neck with his free hand, gazing coldly at nothing. "Chet was one of the pilots." 

"Kel Chet, this is Revivalist Base, please confirm your identity?" A different, tentatively hopeful voice pipped up on the comm. 

Kylo tensed, then Hux's voice stopped him cold.

"A wind's in the heart of me, and fire's in my heels," Hux quoted, perfectly serene. 

Finn had turned in his co-pilot's seat to watch Hux, and Poe was flying a steady course while staring over his shoulder. 

"I was interrogated for sixteen days," Hux said to their three dumbfounded faces. "Did you think I was idle in that time?" 

"Kel Chet, please direct your craft to the landing bay and report to Commander Villet for debriefing and further orders." The voice on the comm sounded so relieved Kylo felt a little sorry for them. 

Poe blew his cheeks out and tilted Seafarer around. 

On one side of the beautiful tower of the town hall, what must have been gardens had been razed to allow for rows and rows of a motley assortment of fighters. Mostly A-wings, some X-wings of uncertain vintage, and, alarmingly, a not insignificant amount of TIE fighters. Seafarer landed among them, and a team of pilots and ground crew began jogging towards them. 

"We are going to take command at of the Revivalist Authority," Hux said quietly to Kylo. "You tell me where to go, and keep up." 

Kylo nodded. His sabre was tucked discretely into the long, sleeveless coat he'd discovered in Hux's bag from the corvette. He swallowed and rubbed the little star shaped cuts on his left hand. 

"Good luck," said Poe, looking back at them with a little concern.

"May the Force be with you,” Finn said quietly to Kylo.

Kylo's attention jerked back to Finn. No one had said that to him in many, many years. He opened his mouth, shut it again, blinked and nodded.

The ramp descended amid armed Revivalists, and Hux, in old, mismatched Republican army and civilian clothes, bearded and still bruised, his hair a shaggy mop, swept down among them. 

"Kel Chet? Welcome back, " A man in uniform presented himself to Hux. He held a data pad the way most people would cradle a child. "We have some verifications to deal with now. If you could follow me we must move rapidly. This is an alarming development but the First Order is en route with an invasion force..."

"Present me to Commander Villet," Hux didn't break stride, but walked straight past the young officer, making him yip with alarm and scramble to try and get ahead. "I'm aware of the First Order invasion force and have information crucial to our defence."

Kylo smirked. 

"Yes, sir." The flustered officer apparently forgot about his verifications.  

They walked through the last few rows of the fighters, away from Seafarer and the nervous pilots and ground personnel who were suddenly all talking to Poe. Apparently, a couple thousand stormtroopers mobilizing into your part of space was worth discussing. 

They passed between the tips of the two wings of the main building, and into the ruined courtyard. Ahead of them, the stone tower loomed. It wasn't terribly tall, but wide and sturdy, in the Republican style of glass, plants and artfully carved stone. A huge, glittering window flashed in the late afternoon sun at the highest level above them. 

Kylo kept right behind and slightly to one side of Hux, and slid carefully into their stumbling attendant officer's mind. The man missed a step, put a hand to his head, and looked around bewildered. 

"Main door needs a pass key, this kid has it," Kylo murmured to Hux. Ahead of them, the shining tower of the Revivalist Headquarters loomed, white stone and green ivy looking austere and glittering.

"Your pass key," Hux held out his hand expectantly.

The orderly, flustered and hopping to keep up, scrambled for it. He hesitated, and Kylo moved his hand minutely.

The orderly passed Hux his card key. 

Hux took it and immediately pressed it to the reader beside the seal that held the main doors shut. It turned underneath his touch, and the doors slid back, closely followed by the internal blast doors. 

"Lifts," Kylo murmured. "Far wall." 

Inside the long stone foyer, people jumped to attention as Hux, moving like the king of death, strode through them. No one seemed to know why a bruised man with a beard and a black clad bodyguard were so important. But they held their breath until Hux passed.

The lifts, with a gratifying understanding of public appearances, opened just as they reached them.  Hux, Kylo and the stumbling, bewildered orderly didn't slow down as they entered them. 

Three people, who had been unfortunate enough to be in the lift and preparing to enter the foyer, immediately jumped back, and squashed themselves into a back corner. The attending officer tapped the button, held his thumb against the pad for verification, and the doors of the lift slid shut. 

The lift, containing three bewildered Revivalists on their way back to the upper floors, a young officer trying to reattached his key card to his jacket, Kylo glaring balefully, and Hux standing perfectly still with his feet apart and his hands clasped behind him, rose without a tremor. There was a tinny jingle playing over the speaker.

Kylo skimmed over the minds around them. The images were confused and disjointed, mostly caught up in each person's respective duties, but there was one common, terrifying thread that ran through them all. That the First Order was on their way. And no one seemed to be doing anything about it.

The doors opened and the orderly scrambled out, clearly seeing his chance to actually lead Hux instead of being brought along like a dog at heel. Hux strode after him and Kylo cast one last glance at the unfortunate people left cowering in the corner of the lift and followed. 

The hallways on this upper floor were beautiful and rich, though signs of the occupation by a radicalized military force was starting to show. Mud and blood had been tracked into the carpet and there was writing and graffiti along one wall. A door had been torn off its hinges, and Kylo could see a stockpile of Republican weapons through the yawning doorway. There were a few sigils of the starbird and the hexagon of the First Order scrawled on the walls, with violent slashes and scorch marks over them. 

The officer jogged the last few steps, trying to look like he wasn't, and knocked at the huge, pristine wooden doors at the end of the hall. "Kel Chet and..." He called, then trailed off, looking at Kylo for the first time. 

"Dismissed," Hux said to him. 

Kylo could see what Hux intended, and slipped one hand smoothly into his coat as they approached the door.

Before they reached it, the door was thrust open, and the young officer on the other side had to jump clear as Hux didn't slow his stride.

The headquarters of the Revivalist Authority was suddenly laid out before them. Kylo blinked; the room had been a grand hall at one point, wide and high, white and gold with a wall of tinted windows looking out over the courtyard below them. It was beautiful, deliberately catering to the old grandeur of the Republic. The high ceiling was magnificently painted and domed, and a huge glittering chandelier hung from its apex. 

The Revivalists had apparently enjoyed this glory, and then only added to its ugliness.  Processors, holorings, and work stations had been brought in, a mishmash of desks and tables and computers and wires running and tangled around the parquet floor. A loose aisle between them led to a raised dias and a few austere chairs before the wall of glass, where five Commanders of the Revivalist Authority were getting to their feet. All over the hall, people were looking up startled and suddenly alarmed as Hux strode in among them. 

"Any non-essential personnel leave now," Hux ordered. Several people, staring at him as though mesmerized, jerked to their feet. 

"Disregard that," snapped a man at the dias. "How dare you! Kel Chet what is the meaning of this affront to my authority..." 

He was in an old military uniform, with white gloves and braid over his shoulder. Kylo's breath caught, and only Hux's solid, unwavering pace kept him from lunging forward. The man was the general of the Revivalists. The man who had lit, would have lit, the pyre to burn Hux alive. 

A woman standing beside him on the dias went chalk white, her horrified eyes on Hux. 

Hux leveled a glare at the general. "Kel Chet is dead," Hux's voice rang around the hall. "I am General Hux of the First Order, left hand to Supreme Leader Snoke." 

There were a few little shrieks from the surrounding technicians and those non-essential personnel who weren't quick enough to get out when they should have. A few determined looking people,  went for the door, their minds on the cache of weapons down the hall. 

Without breaking stride, Kylo slammed the doors shut and with a savage wrench, the guard who had opened them took up a fighting stance with a vacant expression and her blaster in both hands. Those people thinking about ordinances larger than a pistol skidded uncertainly to a stop. 

“Formerly,” Hux admitted, his voice ringing as he drew up to the dias. It was lower than Kylo had thought; the people atop it were old and stooped, and even from the floor, Hux stood taller than most of them. 

Kylo turned to stand back to back with Hux, watching the way they had come, looking at the stricken technicians and officers and very, very unfortunate non-essential personnel. People were hesitating to draw weapons.

"With me is Kylo Ren, the former Weapon to Supreme Leader Snoke." Hux went on levelly, "He will kill the last person to surrender." 

Kylo's hand came out of his coat and the red blade of his saber cracked out and gave a sizzling snarl as he spun it around his hand. Red light flashed and sparkled off gleaming Republican uniforms, gilded columns and the high crystal chandelier flashed red above them. 

There was a horrified silence, broken as blasters suddenly tumbled in numbers to the scuffed parquet floor. 

"It's a tie," Hux said calmly. 

Kylo whirled , pivoting smoothly around Hux and leapt up the dias, sabre already sweeping forward. Still airborne, he put the weight of his body behind the swing, slammed his sabre into the steel-eyed General and carved him in half. The pieces were still falling when he landed on the dias and spun, using the momentum of his previous strike and slashing his sabre up. Another man, moving far too slowly to aim a blaster, screamed as his blaster and attached arm spun away without him. Kylo, his coat sweeping around his legs, raised his sabre over his shoulder, and hacked down in a brutal swing. The man, cut through from shoulder to mid thigh, his mouth still open in a scream, dropped in a slushy heap.

Hux still stood calmly with his back to the room at large, and Kylo, on the dias above him, turned and snapped his left hand out. Four blaster shots diverted before they reached Hux's unguarded back, whined harmlessly past them and shattered the huge glass wall behind the dias. Breaking glass filled the hall with noise, and sunlight poured in. Four suddenly panic stricken junior officers froze in amazement and terror, then tried to take aim at Hux's back again. 

Kylo felt the new power in his chest already awake, already savage and hungry and fierce. He let it engulf him. Lightning howled from his left hand, struck the only four officers still holding weapons, jumped between them and snapped out abruptly. Several more people screamed. 

"Now," Hux said, his voice ringing over the sudden panic, "understand that you're alive by my sufferance." 

The four bodies, still shuddering in death throws, slumped to the floor or over their work stations. The room went suddenly, horribly quiet. Kylo stepped towards the last three officers on the dias, and they prudently backed away, nearly fell off the dias as a unit, and stumbled down into a retreat. 

Hux stepped up on the dias, standing between the two wrecked bodies of the former Revivalists, and turned to face the shocked and silent hall. He stood with his feet apart and his head up,  his hands clasped behind him. Kylo stood beside him with the enormous shattered window and the blazing sun at their back. 

"I am no longer a commanding officer of the First Order," Hux announced to the terrified, staring officers. "I will be their death. I am your Commander." 

There was a brief, agonized little uproar amid the people gathered in the hall. People began moving, the spell of silence and inaction broken, panic sparked between people and noise and chaos were threatening to get out of control. One man reached down with desperate speed, and seized a discarded blaster. 

Kylo let him fire. The blast froze in mid air halfway to Hux, crackling and whining above the heads of the crowd. 

The hall fell thunderously silent again. Kylo stood beside Hux with his left hand out, saber drawn and spitting red light. The man who had fired was paralyzed, his body held in a hideous rigor, right hand twisted painfully behind him. Those people who surrounded him backed away as one, fully aware of what a dead man standing looked like.

"Go ahead Hux," Kylo murmured, "unless you want them gone." 

"Leave them, just as they are," Hux softly replied. There was a lilt to his voice, almost pleased. 

"You, the Revivalist Authority of the lost Republic, are now my military," Hux went on, his voice ringing in the hall, "A siege level force of the First Order's military is en route here, under General Phasma's command, and she and her forces will destroy you without the privilege of my command. Additionally, your people will benefit from Commander Poe Dameron and Commander Finn Dameron of the Resistance as they will lead the air and ground troops respectively. After the attack by First Order forces has been repelled, the Revivalist Authority will be disbanded." 

Another brief, break in the silence. People shrieked and someone spat as he cursed them both. Kylo tensed as the noise rose; he felt his hair lift as light snapped and darted between his fingers. 

"Silence!" 

The noise died, and everyone in the room, Hux and Kylo included, looked across the room at a middle aged man with dark skin and a captain's stripes. 

He eyed them speculatively, then his voice rose over the mumbling of the other Revivalists. "Disbanding means we'll be picked off by the First Order in batches. We can't defend the Republic survivors or protect their efforts to rebuild. Should we survive this encounter, how are we to expect you to shelter us from more harm? Will you lead our efforts?" 

He had a hard, flat gaze and stood like a soldier; there wasn't an ounce of derision in his voice. Kylo spared an effort and flicked a cursory look inside his head. A brief window showed a soldier’s life and a pragmatic approach to survival.

"The Resistance, through Commander Poe and Commander Finn, will offer amnesty, shelter and work to those former Revivalists fit to accept it." Hux looked coldly back at the soldier, but spoke to the room at large. "They will protect you. They are already fighting on behalf of the Republic and aiding the survivors’ efforts." 

It was a bold faced lie as far as Kylo knew, but it sounded good, especially considering the bulk of Revivalists were here, graffiting the walls of their base at the edge of a razed town and no apparent work underway. There was a ripple of conversation around the room. People were trading loaded looks. There wasn't just fear, now there was uncertainty. A useful thing that Hux could work with. 

Hux, standing beside Kylo and looking stone cold calm with a blaster shot frozen in the air a few feet from his face, pushed his luck. It was far too exhausted to rouse itself. 

"The First Order is coming. You have troops and weapons, and your commanders had no orders for you. You will have a chance to survive the First Order assault if you are under the command of their former General. You could have a life of work and security afterwards through the Resistance. There is no other way.” 

More uncertain looks. The Revivalists must have known how weak they were to be as docile in the face of any authority. Kylo could have almost felt sorry for them. 

“Begin preparations for receiving the assault immediately.” Hux ordered. “Clean up this mess. Base Operations officer, personnel officer, ordnance officer, communications officer and you, Captain, report to me immediately. Bring me a table, maps of the area, a comm link and a local star chart." 

The hall was a silent, breathless room full of bewildered and frightened people. A blaster shot hovered in the air above them, one terrified man still held in Force locked rigor. People would very very shortly either begin their work under Hux, or become very, very angry. 

 

"Well," snarled the captain who'd demanded answers, "move!" 

There was a slight shift, a tipping in Hux's favor, but Kylo realized it wouldn't be enough. 

Kylo dropped the mind of the guard by the door and lashed out to one of the surviving officers edging away from the dias. She stiffened, and turned like a puppet pulled by a string. 

"Attend," The Revivalist colonel snapped like a school mistress. "Your orders were given." 

It tipped the scales. The technicians dropped to their work stations, frantically scrambling to appear busy, communications officers jammed their headsets on, backwards in some cases. Officers stiffened to attention and began moving through the rough tables and desks, ordering others to correct this or that. There was a fast and furious game of rock-paper-scissors going on under someone’s desk to determine who would have to fulfil the role of ordnance officer. A hastily arranged lottery was going on around the communications officers. 

The guard who had been holding the door looked around in complete bewilderment. 

Hux took one step to the side and Kylo released the blaster shot. It howled out of the wide open wall behind them and was gone. The man who'd fired it collapsed to the floor and was immediately left gasping in a wide empty circle. 

"Let them work," Hux murmured to Kylo. 

Kylo powered down his sabre, and gently released his mental grip on the strict officer. She seemed to sag slightly, a perplexed expression crossing her face. Then in the best traditions of military officers everywhere, she corrected her stance, smoothed her uniform, and looked sharply competent, then stood at attention with her fellows. Confident that whatever was happening was safely happening either above or below their rank and without their attention. 

"Sir," The outspoken captain was the first to approach the dias. He stood looking up at Hux with a lack of fear that was almost insolent. "Captain Marblehead."

"Your role?" Hux asked. 

"Training, babysitting recruits and new comers," He paused, his head tipped slightly to one side as though hard of hearing. "You should know, I'm a mercenary. Dad was Republican. Volunteered with the Revivalists after he died on planet," The flat gaze he leveled at Hux was equal parts resignation and hostility. "But these officers, our leaders," the dour sarcasm on the word was nearly palpable, "are idiots. No plan, no contingency, no interest in the people they lost. Five hundred people died storming the Finalizer to take you off it." 

He threw out the fact, and the event, so baldly that Hux and Kylo both blinked. 

"Could have been done with more prisoners and less killing. Stupid. I want out but don't want to leave ‘em to die. Plenty of people thought they'd be helping the Republic when they signed on. Smart young patriots with ideas and educations. Now they're stranded here. I want them, and myself, to have a shot of living through this and you are, unbelievably, our best bet. What are your orders?" 

"What constitutes the troops here?" 

"There's two main groups. Militia has military training, but mostly their background is non-combative. Made them the leaders of squads of new recruits. Recruits are non-military backgrounds. Outnumber the military forces six to one. Lots of highly educated Republican idealists who are getting their hands dirty for the first time. But they're hard workers, and they believe in what they're doing." 

"Bring me a list and summary of the training what forces are available have received. Their capabilities and weaknesses. Requisition whomever you need from the work pool here. Leave those with a military background, if you're confident they'll perform competently under orders. Bring me a list of those Recruits with skills above the average of the others. Anything." 

Captain Marblehead nodded with an acknowledgement of authority that was very nearly flippant, but after another brief probe though his mind, Kylo found no malice there. 

Hux cast a glance at the surviving officers standing at rigid attention. "And take these officers away. See that they're held safely where they may stand trial before the Resistance after our ordeal." 

The captain visibly perked up at this, and rounded on the three petrified former high officers. 

"Yes, sir." He said. Clearly a man who supplied respect when he felt it suited his own aims. 

"Dismissed." 

Three young officers and a technician approached the dias in Marblehead's wake, a spare table between them. They tentatively carried it up onto the dias, and put it before Hux after shoving away the throne like chairs and picking their way over over the pieces of former officers. 

A young technician followed them up the dias, tripped, sprawled  flat, then jumped to her hands and knees, eyes down, scrambling to collect her scattered maps and charts. A few had fallen into blood trails and she shook them off with distaste.

"There's elevations and a recent survey of the razed city," She babbled, rising to her knees and pushing flimsies and datadisks and maps onto Hux's new table. "And a star chart, local system and the larger area." She pulled a tube on a strap from her back and went to put it on the table, but Hux neatly took it from her. 

"Identify yourself first," Hux said, reining in his exasperation, as he looked down at the woman, "then report." 

"Right, ok, I think they made me a Lance Corporal? It's Toni Bow, I'm a surveyor." She raked a scattered quantity of datadisks towards herself, speaking to the bloody, spattered floor. 

"Lance Corporal Bow, when was the city razed?" Hux asked her, already sorting the mixed maps and charts into neat little piles and receiving additional material as young Lance Corporal Toni Bow was passed them up to him.

Kylo flicked an interested little dart of inquiry into the woman as she climbed to her feet, leaning back awkwardly to keep a double handful of datadisks from tumbling back down. She had been a civilian recruit, a survivor from the Republic's destruction. She'd been on Chitoo Boh when the Republican system was destroyed, but her fiance hadn't. 

"Just Toni, please, I'm really not military. The Revivalists evacuated the city, eight days ago. The folks, uh, civilians have gone into the camps. The forests around here have wonderful trails, great local flora and are full of really nice..." She caught Hux's eye and dumped the disk onto the table, "Never mind. But a few hours later some people came back for things they forgot, so General Abalon ordered that it be burned to the ground." 

The words came out fast, and Kylo recognized the look she shot at Hux. The one that said 'We were following orders but honestly I didn't agree with them don't blame me orders are orders right?'

"Monitor the area surrounding this building. Be ready to report any changes to me. Dismissed," Hux said, dragging a huge star chart out of the tube and activating it. A hologram of the systems around Chitoo Boh projected just over his head. "Bring me the latest information on the First Order fleet." 

The surveyor hopped gratefully off the dias and trotted back into the furor of activity amid the mismatched desks and workstations. 

A holoring across the room sent up a hologram of a battle cruiser. All around the hall, former enemies were becoming absorbed in their work. Marblehead was talking fast to another man who looked like his brother; they turned to speak to an attentive group of technicians who were all nodding and taking notes. Toni Bow was talking rapidly to a handful of sunburned people in muddy boots and sweaters over their hastily issued Republican uniforms. Everyone, incredibly, leaning into their efforts. Working for Hux.

"This really was a foregone conclusion for you wasn't it," Kylo murmured. 

"Of course," Hux replied quietly. "You're here." 

A few orderlies timidly approached the dias as Kylo opened his mouth, looking sharply at Hux as he did, then he shut it as they silently began dragging pieces of the dead general and his fellow commander away. They didn't seem terribly torn up about it and Kylo didn't need to probe their mind to know how incredibly unpopular these men must have been. The four officers who had fired at Hux had been carefully draped in a Republican flag when they'd been carried out. General Abalon was dumped unceremoniously on a trolley. 

Kylo kept his sabre in hand, his mind casting out, skipping from head to head, seeking the person who would dare raise their hand to resist Hux. He found frantic efforts towards their assorted work, minds buzzing with possibilities, and incredibly, hope. People didn't know they would die today. After all, they might not.

"Sir," a woman who had apparently drawn the short straw approached the dias. She made an admirable effort, straightened her spine, and snapped out a salute sharp enough to shave with. "Sergeant Felicity Cheer reporting. Ordnance division." 

"The weapon used against the First Order on the attack which incapacitated the Finalizer, describe it," Hux tore his eyes off the charts and data pads before him and stared flatly down at the woman. 

She swallowed. Apparently word of the attack on Hux's Finalizer had been well spread. Kylo watched a series of cheerful drinks clinked to the victory over the Finalizer from behind her eyes. He turned his saber around in his hand speculatively. 

Sergeant Felicity Cheer took a quick, shaking breath, trying to ignore Kylo, and spoke fluently. "Experimental Weapon RA-04, also called the Holy Writ, was developed from technology already in use as solar plants for energy for military, industrial and civilian use. First pioneered on Chitoo Boh there are five working stations which have been converted to produce Holy Writ and eighteen stations as yet unconverted. There is little to no difference in the core systems between converted and unconverted stations. The converted stations tend not to explode after a Holy Writ has been established." 

"How often can they fire?" 

"One hour of direct sun exposure produces approximately point-five seconds of Holy Writ. The conversion is imperfect however, after one hour, the conversion rate drops off, producing point four seconds in its second hour, and then point two five in the third." 

"How long was the weapon that attacked the Finalizer charged for?" Hux didn't need to know, so Kylo just assumed he was assuaging a maudlin curiosity. 

"It logged twenty nine hours of direct sunlight at the time of it's Writ." Sergeant Cheer said with a tremor in her voice. 

"Ready all stations, even those which might explode following deployment of their Holy Writ," Kylo could almost feel Hux wanting to roll his eyes as he used the name, "If any can make an attack on a First Order controlled vessel, they are ordered to fire. Personnel who can program a deployment of the Writ are not required to be in the station when it is at risk of explosion. I want to know what their current power levels are now.” 

The colonel let out a breath, "Yes sir, thank you sir." 

"What other ordnance are the ground troops supplied with?" Hus was flicking through the information he’d already received. 

Sergeant Cheer carefully pushed a datapad in amidst the maps and charts. "The full equipment listing is there, sir." 

"Very well," Hux tapped the datapad and it lit up to displaya rolling table detailing a motley arrangement of artillery, blasters, and the Republic land ships that had been hastily weaponized by the Revivalists. He stopped cold at a listing and tapped it. "Mounted chain launch cannons?" 

"On the roof. They're old, sir, we've only ever used them on the kerns or... Uh native species. Somewhat hostile." 

Hux gazed at the woman, his face blank. Kylo glanced at the specifications for the weapon and shut his eyes briefly. It could fire a length of chain strung between two weighted shrapnel grenades. What the hell kind of native species did this planet deal with daily?

"Arm them. They will deter enemy fighters from attacking this tower directly." 

She looked a little perplexed at the armament of what was, to her, mere pest control. "Yes, sir." 

Before Hux could dismiss her, Kylo sent a little probe of inquiry into her relief softened mind. A research and development officer for the Republican armed forces. Her branch had been so civilianized it was, apart from its engineering, largely ceremonial. She was native to Chitoo Boh, and had been here when General Albion had instigated the Revivalist Authority. 

"Dismissed," Hux snapped out to the Sergeant.

Sergeant Felicity Cheer hustled off, and the collective atmosphere of the hall became noticeably more productive as she joined her waiting peers.

"Sir," A man who made up one of the room's not infrequent septuagenarians approached following the departure of the Sergeant. "Staff Sergeat Graves Dark. The First Order fleet was last detected by scout droid Seek-Seven. Authorization Graves Halifax one nine one seven. " 

Hux looked immediately up to the star chart above his head, and tapped its controls. The hologram flickered, and when it resolved, a swarm of battle cruisers were visible amid the stars. Phasma was much, much closer than Kylo had anticipated. 

"Dismissed," Hux said, looking up at the chart, totally absorbed. 

"Comm, Sir," A woman took her turn to approach the dias. "Sergeant Major Rose Hilm. Communications. All our comms run on channel one six, all heads of all branches carry these.” The woman spoke briskly, without waiting to see if anyone was paying attention. She managed to bustle in military fatigues, and wore a knitted cardigan inside her coat. “We don't use much else for communications. If you want to contact anything outside of the immediate area, there is a holoring in the communications hall. Our forces have been consolidated here so we haven't needed them, you know. But these comms have done nicely for us instead. Call out to anyone and they'll be in earshot of one. I'm listening in for any interception. Most of the work's all done. I don't need anyone. Just best to leave it all to me. Only so many hands." 

"Thank you, dismissed," Hux took the comm and waved the sergeant major away, slightly taken aback by the high octane chatter and lack of deference. 

She did, and Hux as much as shrugged at Kylo, studied the little comm, and pressed the button. 

"Seafarer, report." 

"Ah, the pleasure of speaking with General Hux of the Revivalist Authority." Poe answered immediately, not bothering to switch channels. "Yeah, Finn has the ground troops and is speaking with their Field General. Pilots here don't have a Commander, so I've let them know I'll be filling in for the foreseeable future." 

"Very good," Hux's voice held a trace of relief, but Kylo was fairly certain that no one else could have heard it. "Inform Commander Finn Dameron of the Resistance that he's authorized to begin earthworks and traps in preparation for the attack." 

"Commander Finn--" Poe choked himself off. The line went dead briefly then, "Aye sir, Commander Finn Dameron. Right. Yeah. Ha. Dameron. Finn Dameron." 

Kylo nearly looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. Hux pushed a hand through his hair. "Marshal pilots to their fighters. Find one for yourself," he said clearly into the comm.

"No problem there," they could hear Poe grinning, "there's a couple A-wings, B-wings, both marks one and two, X-wings, plenty here. It's a candy store of rejects and cast offs. And they're all customized. I'll prep Commander uh... Finn Dameron for his assignment." Grinning like an idiot.

"Command fighters on standby, awaiting confirmation of readiness," Hux said, managing to sound perfectly calm.

"Commander Dameron monitoring channel one six. One of the two anyway." Poe answered happily, and Hux put down the comm. 

Kylo suppressed a smile and Hux bent over the charts and maps again, above him, the system star chart cast a pale blue and orange light down. It flickered as the scout droid Seek-Seven updated the position of the Finalizers, getting closer. 

They were too close. Phasma must have dropped everything and jumped into hyper-drive when the scout they'd found in that asteroid field had locked onto their course. She wasn't giving any quarter, and she had mustered an alarmingly large force. Certainly pushing the predictions that Hux had offered. 

"Sir," A thin man approached the dias and paused before them, "Sergeant Kose Lin, Base Operations."

Hux looked up from the survey flimsy, "Sergeant Kose, what medical facilities are available on site and what defenses does this building claim?"

It was strange seeing Hux talking to people; usually he had lieutenants and aides who he could delegate all that to. But Hux had gotten Starkiller and the Finalizer running like a machine for a long time. Here he was starting from less than scratch. 

Sergeant Kose Lin was talking and Kylo was too busy watching Hux to pay attention this time. At least Kose sounded compitent. 

"One moment. Kylo," Hux went on breaking into Kylo’s focus, "Tell Finn to start digging. Focus in the razed city right in front of the town hall, she'll flank us here and here," Hux tapped the recent survey of the area and held out the comm to Kylo. 

"Commander Dameron," Kylo spoke into the comm. He moved a little away from where Hux and Kose were rapidly becoming technical. His sabre was still in his hand and he prowled behind Hux as he spoke, watching the hall of busy people rapidly losing interest in him. 

"Yes," Two voices on the other end of the comm, both slightly breathless. Kylo cast his eyes up to the ceiling briefly. 

"Finn," Kylo specified dourly. "Go to channel two-five." 

"Two five," Finn confirmed sheepishly. 

Kylo flipped the comm over to an empty channel. 

"Commander Finn Dameron on two-five," Finn said, grinning stupidly, Kylo could just hear him.

"Finn, do you have your ground troops?" 

"Yes," Finn's voice was a little sheepish. "Yes, spoke to some of the captains, they've taken their teams out to start scouting out the surrounding area." The line went dead for a moment before it came back to Finn's boots clattering down the familiar rattle of Seafarer's boarding ramp. "When is she going to be here?" 

"A couple of hours. Early evening." Kylo had already seen that. Kylo took a few steps towards the huge open space where the windows had been shattered. The sun was up above hills, shining down hot and clear. "Finn," He added quietly, "We won't have that long. She'll drop troops before sunset, with the sun at their backs."

"If she does a frontal charge, that means an ambush as well, probably from either side," Finn remarked, echoing Kylo's vision, and Hux's intuition. Phasma was predictable, but with the numbers she would bring it probably wouldn't matter. "Come at us from the front to draw our attention, then strike with two smaller, simultaneous forces behind us."

"Probably," Kylo felt slightly sick. He could hear Hux patiently walking Sergeant Kose through what sounded like an exhaustive report on the on site facilities. 

"I'll order traps and falls to be laid throughout the ruined town, and for a few ambush teams to stand by to flank the three attacks when they come," Finn said. "They never expect that. And I'm putting most of the people with no military background inside the town hall. The courtyard will be a kill-box and they'll have some cover. I have people moving in ammunition and medical supplies now. I'll try and get some lights set up, too. The trooper helmets have a hell of a time seeing through certain spectrums. If I can match that, we could blind them as they come.”  

Finn would have made a formidable sergeant, Kylo thought grimly, and with a certain pride he didn't deserve. "Good. Also get a few gunners on the roof. Apparently there's a gun up there that shoots chain and plasma and shrapnel grenades. It sounds like it can cut a shuttle in half and keep going to hit a few more TIEs."

There was silence at the other end. "Did you just say they have a cannon that shoots plasma shrapnel grenades on chains on the roof of their town hall?" 

"Deters the wildlife." Kylo was starting to understand the reports of Chitoo Boh's 'undesirable' wildlife. 

"Hang on, I have to go back and tell Poe. He was looking at the B-wings and muttering something technical a little while ago. I'll find a couple of good gunners. Anything else?" 

"Phasma will be leading the frontal assault, with her personal guard," Kylo said. He wasn't sure why he felt hesitant about saying so. "She'll have to kill all four of us herself."

"Not happening," Finn said firmly.

Kylo almost smiled. From where he stood, where the edge of the dias dropped away all the way down the front of the tower to the ruined courtyard. The air was cool and fresh up here, and the single sun hung above him. He could see teams of people, ragtag groups, each led by a officer in uniform, picking their way through the ruined city away before him. One industrious team was carting a huge crate of what could only be explosives. It looked worryingly heavy.

"It was called Holy Writ, by the way," Kylo said absently into the comm.

"What now?" 

"The white murder light beam Poe flew us through, the one Phasma took after it blew up Hux's Finalizer. They're a solar energy farm, modified to create a hard light beam. They call it Holy Writ." 

After a moment, Finn said, "Bit pretentious.” 

Kylo did smile at that. "All of the ones on the planet have orders to fire if they can hit a First Order craft."

A snort. "Phasma will appreciate the turnabout. Thanks for letting me know. It was bothering me." 

"How are the people where you are? Ground troops, pilots?" Kylo wasn't sure why he was asking. 

"Scared shitless and ready to die. Most of them are civilians who lost everything when the Republic was wiped out. They're brave, but that's not the same as well trained. And they all know the area, they're all a hell of a lot smarter than your average trooper and they're all holding a grudge and an irresponsible amount of ordnance. All that's valuable. The Revivalist movement is so new, and there were so few surviving military leaders, and none of them were all that smart, nothing was done as it should have. No one above the rank of sergeant seems to care if people who were civilians two weeks ago die here." 

But Finn did. And Poe. Kylo wondered if Hux did, and then remembered the cheering crowd of civilians watching Hux burn, and remembered he at least didn't give a shit. 

"Is it different for you?" Finn's voice came through quietly, a little sadly, "Being on the losing side?" 

Kylo stared out at the hills beyond the ruined town, the forests that would go gold when the sun set behind them. Familiar to him, seen through Hux's eyes. Where Phasma would come down on them with vengeance on the crest of tens of thousands of shining Troopers. "Strange seeing death from the other side," Kylo said, wondering if it was a lie, even as he said it, "Thought I'd be dead a long time before this." He wished Poe and Finn didn't have to go down this time though. He wasn't going to let Hux fall. "Although for what it's worth, I want to live." He thought of his mother’s words to him. The old ache where he wished her arms could hug him suddenly made his chest ache. 

"That can be enough," Finn said quietly. "Standing by on one six."  

"Awaiting report of readiness on one six." Kylo said. Then a sudden impulse made him add, "Finn." 

"Yeah?" Finn sounded like he'd had to pull the receiver back to his mouth. "What is it?" 

Kylo hesitated. "May the Force be with you." 

"You too," Finn smiled into the comm. 

Kylo looked away from the huge expanse of land from the window and back to the command centre. The table on the dias was lit up with the star chart, smaller holograms of weapons and armor, a rolling roster list of people. A huge flimsy with the surveyed elevations map of the area took up the centre of the table, and was pinned in place by a smaller datadisk on each corner. Hux was talking to Ordnance Officer Sergeant Felicity Cheer again, rattling off a list she she was scrambling around on her data pad to get down. 

Hux had managed to take the tangled mess of lax, hopeless enemies, take command of them and suss out the competent leaders simply by dint of finding people brave enough to approach him. He stared hard at the officers who had been abruptly elevated to serve under Hux's direct command and tried to remember if he'd seen them dead. 

"Kylo," Hux barely spoke loud enough to hear. 

Sergeant Cheer tottered from the dias, looking over a huge list that she'd penned almosts as fast as Hux could speak.

"Finn and Poe?" Hux asked as Kylo stepped back to him. 

"Delighted to be sharing a name," Kylo offered the really important news first, then went on, "Finn likes the people he's got, Republicans had a military so disused and archaic it was simply around to employ wayward young morons who looked good in uniform, but they seemed to have produced some startlingly well-educated civilians. All the teams I could see were setting some deviously effective traps."

"Phasma never ran a simulator where civilians posed a major defensive challenge," Hux said quietly. 

He was suppressing a smirk, Kylo could just read it in the way he tipped his chin down. 

"She's experienced in guerilla warfare and siege tactics, and knows how to storm anything, but she won't consider a couple hundred former Republicans a threat. They're not much of one," Hux amended hurriedly, frowning at the table and the jumbled lists of weapons, ships, people, and facilities, "but more than she'll anticipate. Knowing I'm here, she'll worry about my hand, not theirs." 

"I was wondering why you were allowing the teams to rove at their own discretion," Kylo said mildly. 

"If I don’t come up with it she can't anticipate it," Hux shrugged.

It was a small, brief movement. His hands, still clasped behind him, tightened.

"With any luck," he added quietly. 

Kylo reached out to touch him, caught himself in time and flinched away. Nobody in the enormous hall looked up, or seemed to notice. 

Hux did. 

"You were right, I wouldn't have taken this room on my own." Hux hesitated and looked out at the bustling work. 

The former Revivalists had dragged desks or tables together to work together. All the holorings were on, projecting battle cruisers, schematics of stormtrooper armor, the planet and where the siege force would strike. People were trotting briskly in and out with a purpose. Marblehead and his brother were going from workstation to workstation in their section, drawing names out of carefully combed records. Toni and her surveyors where creating a live projection of the surface of the razed town. Felicity Cheer was receiving weaponry from a stream of young officers, a growing heap of blasters, explosives and shield generators beside her. Graves Dark was grumbling over his holoring, surrounded by several other men and women of equal or advanced age, all busily trying to send more scouts in to Phasma's projected path. 

"She'll have to kill us herself," Hux said quietly. He gazed up at the huge chandelier. It was tinkling softly as a breeze blew in through the gaping lack of window. "That's her primary goal. She won't be able to totally slaughter the people here until she's certain she has us. She won't vouch for our deaths if we're brought to her as corpses. And she'll have to be certain of our deaths if she wants to keep Snoke's favour." 

Hux's mediative train of thought was cut off sharply by an explosion. Kylo’s saber cracked to life with nothing to attack or block. A few people shrieked, the chandelier chimed, and everyone stared out the lack of window towards the ruined town. Black smoke was rolling up in a column, and a wave of dirt and flying wood went up in an arc. There was a distant whoop. 

"It's field testing," Toni Bow piped up from her real time projection at one of the holorings. She pointed to a flashing section of her map that was rewriting itself with every flash. "They're just playing."

"Fuckin’ around," Marblehead muttered. Both he and his brother had shoved a couple of their technicians behind them and had each taken a fighting stance.

There was a collective letting out of breath. Hux snorted with laughter and Kylo looked around at him in amazement. He’d stepped abruptly into Hux’s space to cover him.

"Thinking of the reprimand that would have awaited any Trooper who'd dare waste explosives by 'field testing'," Hux explained, hastily ordering his face into the cold mask of authority again. "I wonder if Finn enjoyed this culture shock when he broke out." 

The comparison hit Kylo in the gut and would have doubled him over if he hadn't turned to stare at Hux with his mouth open. Hux glanced at him, and Kylo snapped his mouth shut with a click and powered his saber down.

"You weren't raised to the Order," Hux said, blinking at Kylo, "but you know I was." 

"Never occurred to me," Kylo said briefly. It was perfectly honest, but there were some uncomfortable implications and comparisons slamming into him, one after another. Things about Hux's life that had never occurred to him. The paths he had to take and roles he had to fill. 

Something exploded again, out in the ruined town, and this time, a few distant voices raised in a whooping laugh. 

"Field test!" Toni Bow called from her busily flashing hologram. 

"I'm not going back either," Hux said very quietly to Kylo. "Finn has the right idea." 

Kylo echoed Poe immediately, "Don't," he snapped. They hadn't talked about this. They hadn't talked. Kylo had stolen Hux and then barely survived to kiss him in a mad argument that should have ended them both. 

"We're not going back," Hux said with calm, rockbound decision. "Either of us. In all likelihood we're not going anywhere after today, but that's still better." 

Kylo nodded, totally unable to think of anything to say. He wished he could, wished he had more eloquence than kissing Hux when he was rattled and angry and not expecting it. Wished he'd stopped himself. Or had picked a moment when Hux hadn't already had his mouth open. 

"Kylo?" Hux said after a few silent moments. Around them, the glittering white and gold hall was a hive of work and hurry. Toni Bow and her team of surveyors were patting each other on the back over their flawless hologram and were discussing what to tackle next. Felicity Cheer was taking inventory of the stock of weapon she'd amassed on one side of the hall. Marblehead and his brother had finished up their list and were reviewing it, both their heads bowed over the data pad that looked small in their hands.

There was no mind Kylo could find that wasn't focused on the upcoming conflict, wasn't aware of Hux's scrutiny, wasn't relieved to have someone making sensible decisions. 

Hux stepped up to stand next to Kylo, and their shoulders brushed slightly. Kylo didn't back off and neither did Hux. 

"Do you want to survive this?" Kylo asked quietly. 

Hux hesitated, then shifted, just barely. "I want to walk out of here," then he paused and went on quietly. "But only if you're following me." 

Kylo let out a breath and nodded; he realized he was smiling, very slightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hux's verification code, "A wind's in the heart of me, and fire's at my heels" is a line from the poem A Wanderers Song, by John Masefield. It's a poem for a sea farer, and is inscribed onboard a tall ship I was fortunate enough to know.
> 
> A wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels,  
> I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;  
> I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limit of the land,  
> Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.  
> Oh I’ll be going, leaving the noises of the street,  
> To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;  
> To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,  
> Oh I’ll be going, going, until I meet the tide.  
> And first I’ll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,  
> The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,  
> The songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out,  
> And then the heart of me’ll know I’m there or thereabout.  
> Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,  
> For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;  
> And I’ll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels,   
> For a wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: July 7, 2017 - revisions for grammar, readability, consistency, and all that good stuff implemented only a year and a half after my long suffering beta reader Windlion went through this huge chapter hunting down my idiocies with a baseball bat. Be good to your beta readers, be better than me.

The afternoon wore on. 

Again and again, Kylo kept remembering his vision of watching Hux die here in this room. It made sense to him now; Phasma had the numbers to lay into them relentlessly. She could hit them with wave after wave of troopers until all of Finn's clever traps were spent, all Poe's fighters were downed, and all of Hux's schemes had run their course. Then she would walk into this room, and kill them both. 

They could put a dent in the First Order forces first though. Even if it was only the surveyors accidentally blowing the foothills up.  Kylo shut his eyes and tried to drag himself back into the present.

The table before Hux filled up with datapads and holograms, while above them the glowing chart of the local stay system glowed orange and blue. Reports poured in of each solar farm's readiness and last minute suggestions for personnel; medical droids hunted down supplies with a focus and purpose that seemed a little sinister. 

Fighters began taking to the air before sundown. Poe's squadrons of B-wings and some of the stolen TIE fighters took off to skulk in the upper atmosphere. The teams Finn had sent out earlier to field test explosives were visible working their way back in towards the town hall, their crates of explosives carried easily by one or two people each. 

The officers who had been rapidly vaulted to Lieutenant status were kept busy: people were organized, weapons and ammunition distributed, scout droids deployed to harry Phasma's fleet all showing exactly how close she was. The sun touched the foothills and the last of the military officers departed to take up a post to fight. Without them, there were less than thirty people in the hall, and all of them so absorbed in their own work, they didn't seem to realize the sun was low enough to shine straight in through the open wall. 

Poe and Finn reported in frequently throughout the afternoon. Poe's last report was so packed with high-powered enthusiastic technical jargon that Kylo cut him off in a desperate bid to get him off topic and asked him what he was going to fly. 

"Beautiful little A-Wing," Poe replied promptly. "She's just like the one my mother used to fly. This one's the same make and model, could have come out of the same assembly line and same molds. Little rickety, pulls a little down, but she's a lively old thing," he said happily.

On the ground, Finn was delighted with the people Hux had sent him. With them, he'd set traps and dug ditches and, something he was most proud of, found an old grain store on the far side of town that had been built to withstand the planet's savage wildlife. Kylo totally failed to understand why that was so exciting but let Finn celebrate it without comment.

"It would probably be left floating aimlessly through space even if Starkiller wrecked the planet out from under it," he said, sounding pleased. "And I explained about the trooper helmets to a few students you sent me, and they think they can mimic the light I was talking about." 

Hux absently made a note on one of the datapads he'd accrued and Kylo as good as shrugged. 

More time sliped away from them. Other people were working with frantic and increasing concentration, and he stood waiting to see Hux die.  

Felicity Cheer brought Hux a huge sniper rifle and a crate of ammo, and Hux looked at it blankly before he nodded and thanked her. The huge open wall before them would be a good vantage point. 

Below the gaping broken window, Kylo found that the courtyard was full of neat lines of Revivalist fighters, bristling with blasters and sitting behind brand new barricades. Medical droids were already weaving among the fighters. It was good for morale to have a healer around, Kylo remembered Phasma mentioning something about that. The sun’s light was turning gold, and catching the trees on the hillsides beyond the ruined town, lighting the sky up in yellow and orange. A few X-wings glided by, pulling the bright clouds out into streaks. 

"Sun Farm Forty-Seven has fired their Holy Writ," Felicity Cheer snapped suddenly.

The room went perfectly silent. Everyone’s attention suddenly locked onto Hux. 

"They can't be here yet," the scoutmaster Graves looked as an annoyed as only an old man with no patience left whatsoever can. "They're still out there." He stabbed a finger at the hologram. Seek-Seven had been diligently reporting the position of the fleet: it was still a comfortable but closing distance away. 

"Sergeant Cheer, report," Hux said calmly from where he was observing the battle cruisers on the projection. They weren't in range of Chitoo Boh yet. 

"It was a long shot." Felicity stared at a datapad in her hands; the screen was updating rapidly and the light flickered on her face. "A cruiser appeared from hyperdrive and they had a few seconds window to reach it. Farm Forty-Seven is on the far side of the planet. It exploded but most personnel have survived. They're reporting that at last sighting, three cruisers had come out of hyperspace and were on course to join low orbit." She looked up at Hux and her face was pale. "They don't know if the Holy Writ caused any damage from this distance." 

"Incoming communication," Rose Hilm trilled from her desk.

Both Kylo and Hux startled slightly. Kylo had totally forgotten about round, bustling Sergeant Rose Hilm. She was wearing two different headsets with a third around her neck, and looked pink with pleasure. 

"Report."

"Ship to ship," Sergeant Rose said with a little nod. She tapped a few of her machines and briskly whacked the side of one. "There, naughty, you'll have it in your comm now, sir. Channel oh niner."  

Mystified, Kylo watched Hux pick up his comm and flipped the frequency to 09. Hux turned the comm on to listen just as one frantic voice began barking out a truely horrifying status report. Another voice, audibly struggling to remain unaffected by the latter’s panic, struggled to receive it without but gave up and began stuttering. There was a splintering crash and a single voice swore in a panic and immediately cut the connection. 

The entire command room was so quiet Kylo could hear his heart beating. A few Revivalists were shaking where they stood. 

"You intercepted communications," Hux said slowly, looking over at Sergeant Rose, "between the bridges of  _ Resurgent _ -class star destroyers?" 

"Oh, just the distress call," Sergeant Rose said, smiling sweetly at him. "I have their number this time, sir, next time they chatter out, I'll be listening in! You'll see. But I'll let you know if they say anything you'll want to hear. No point listening to dead men talk, but I thought you'd like to know that little Cheery's Holy Writ wasn't wasted."

Ah, Kylo thought, a little dazed. Right, she's a Sergeant Major. 

He'd just listened to a star destroyer on the other side of the planet collapse in on itself after receiving a blast of white light from an unknown source. Phasma had already taken casualties. The room had frozen again, stunned and watching Hux with their mouths slightly open. The tension in the room was palpable even without reading minds.

"SergeantCheer," Hux said coolly, "Well done. Solar Farm Forty-Seven's Holy Writ was a confirmed hit. A battle cruiser has been destroyed. You and your charges acted in perfect execution of your duties." 

That was possibly the sweetest thing Hux had ever said. Kylo stared at him with mild disgust and bemusement. 

"Don't look so surprised," Hux muttered sourly to Kylo. "They're not used to this and they're about to panic."

"I underestimated your people skills," Kylo replied, carefully not smiling. 

Sergeant Cheer flushed with pride, and Rose Hilm patted her arm affectionately. People were looking absolutely buoyant from the news that Phasma had already taken casualties. A little whoop ran around the room. Someone laughed. 

It occurred to Kylo that Hux wasn't just waging a war against Phasma. He had to keep these untrained, untested people who had very recently wanted Hux dead and who had seen Kylo kill their fellows, working with absolute obedience. 

"You have your diplomacy," Hux shifted on his feet; he'd been standing four hours and was favoring the side that hadn't needed invasive surgery a few days ago. "I have mine." 

Kylo caught Hux's eye and they both smiled, slightly surprised at the other. Then they both turned their attention to the hologram of seven unharmed battle cruisers making their way towards Chitoo Boh, unaffected by the rush of recent events. 

There was a cheer from the courtyard as those posted below received the news of the downed cruiser. It spread out to the razed city, where the last of Finn's people were hastily packing up their supplies. Oneof Poe's fighters performed a few loop the loops to show their appreciation. 

Too soon for that, Kylo thought, shifting his weight while he probed out into the minds around him as rapidly as he could. The waiting was the hardest part. It was always the hardest part and Hux had done a good job of giving people work to do to keep them from thinking about what was going to happen. But now the work was starting to run out, and people were thinking about death again, thinking about running. The news of a single destroyer collapsing was good, but it wouldn’t be enough. 

"She split her force," Hux muttered, frowning at the hologram and ignoring the cheers from below. "She's come ahead of the main force. Commanders Dameron come in." 

"Yes?" Two voices again, though Poe's had the slightly prickly quality that came from being in a fighter and Finn's had a faint echo. 

"Phasma's arrived. She's lost one star destroyer to a Holy Writ on the other side of the planet but she's en route here. Sending you the scout data while it lasts." He tapped the star chart above his head and went on, "she has at least three above the planet now, and at least seven en route. When she needs more troops she'll just keep deploying them every time they make a pass over us. No sign of the TIEs yet."

"The B-wings and our TIEs are waiting for them," Poe said. "Also, those B-wings are going to be nothing like they've seen before. I'm renaming this run Busters. Your recruits did some incredible work on those things." 

"Glad to hear it," Hux said absently, looking up at the star chart. The orange and blue light light flickered over his skin, "Where are you, Poe?" 

"Leading a squadron behind where we're predicting Phasma's drop off point will be. Squad knows where to hit on those trooper transports. There's duplicate teams heading off towards the two likely places we're expecting ambushes." 

"Good. Finn?" Hux was scowling at the star chart. 

"Making a mess," Finn said cheerfully. "I heard the Republicans didn't make weapons, but the things they made to repel wildlife are better. And these things won’t run out of ammo around here." 

Finn's report was cut short as Sergeant Cheer spoke up sharply. 

"Sir," she looked up at the dias, white-faced but determined. "Solar Farm Three-Nine has been destroyed. A star destroyer launched an assault on it from high orbit and before it was in range." 

Phasma knew about the solar farms; she'd taken the one that had brought down Hux's Finalizer. Kylo set his jaw.

Hux was already speaking, "Was the solar farm one converted for use as a Holy Writ?"

Sergeant Cheer blinked down at her datapad. "Yes, sir." 

"Direct those farms converted for use as weapons to automate their attack as much as they're able and inform their personnel to evacuate." 

"And the one unconverted?" Sergeant Cheer looked anxiously up at hux. 

"If a star destroyer makes an attack on one, follow the same policy." Hux waited until Sergeant Cheer nodded firmly and turned back to her station. "There may be something unique about the weaponized solar farms that Phasma can track," Hux muttered, looking back up at the star chart, "but possibly not the unconverted ones. 

Kylo found himself a little alarmed at the prospect that those sun farmers on their complexes might be destroyed before they could fight back. He reminded himself theat they were the same farmers who were cheering when Hux’s pyre was lit. It helped a little. 

"Our Busters are engaging the first of the cruisers here," Poe's voice called over the comm. "Busters Oh One through two eight, Authorization Hot Dameron eight eight eight." 

Barely wasting time to roll his eyes, Kylo looked up at the star chart as Hux was already tapping in the tracking authorization for the coordinates. The hologram above his head flickered and then twenty-eight tiny points of light were zipping and whirling around four cruisers above the surface of Chitoo Boh.  

"What modifications were undertaken here?" Kylo asked, speaking quietly. The sight of the huge, ponderous cruisers swarmed by the tiny B-wings was somehow mesmerizing. All over the hall, people dropped their work to stare at the star chart and their twenty-eight tiny fighters.

Hux opened his mouth, turning to speak to Kylo but keeping his eyes locked on the hologram, when suddenly the first battle cruiser's bridge broke away from the body of the ship. They both blinked and watched as the cruiser began splitting into pieces. Poe whooped over their comm. 

"Solar Farm Three-Two is firing," Sergeant Cheer reported. 

Before she had finished speaking, the lead cruiser above Chitoo Boh flickered, then reformed on a giddy angle, sliced from bow to midships down the centreline. It flew away from the formation, turning drunkenly through space, then broke apart, its hologram flickering over and over until the scouts lost interest. 

Poe's Busters moved in a swarm to the next cruiser in line. Kylo was staring open mouthed at the hologram. 

"More distress calls, dears," Sergeant Major Rose reported, rearing out of her tangled machines and headsets at her desk. "I'm right in the intership communications but it’s nothing worth hearing really, lots of confusion. No sense. No offense meant, love." This added with a ladylike paw being turned down in Hux's direction. 

"Solar Farm Three-Two has not exploded," Sergeant Cheer said triumphantly. "It has gone critical however, so it's being evacuated now." 

"Well done, Sergeant, and none taken, Sergeant Major," Hux said,still staring at the destroyers fragmenting before his eyes, pulled himself together with an effort Kylo found admirable. 

"I have no idea what modifications Poe ordered to those B-wings," Hux quietly replied to Kylo's earlier question as a round of giddy celebration went around the room. "But I'm granting their renaming as Buster Squadron as a certainty, and if any of those civilian recruits who worked on them survived I'm ensuring their work ends up in the hands of military who will benefit from them." 

"TIE fighters are being deployed," Poe reported over the comm. "Our TIEs are tracked under TIE oh four through four seven, same authorization." 

The bow of the second battle cruiser split off. The Busters were zipping around the destroyers with unbelievable grace.

"TIE fighters have been deployed," Sergeant Major Rose reported, surfacing from her electronics. "Not sure how many that is but I'd say roughly, all of them." 

Kylo was in the middle of some rapid slightly panicked arithmetic when Finn and Poe spoke simultaneously. 

"Twelve hundred.”

The hologram above their heads flickered as pinpricks of light began swarming out from the two launch bays of the remaining star destroyers. 

"Give or take," Poe added. 

"Plus whatever pilots survived the destruction of the first cruisers," Finn went on. 

The sheer size and weight of the force Phasma had brought abruptly became real to Kylo and he had to take a breath. They had their clever traps and anticipation and civilian recruits who could make a B-wing older than he was capable of taking out a star destroyer seven kilometres long. All of that wasn't going to mean much in the face what Phasma had brought.

"What the fuck," Hux said quietly but with considerable feeling into the comm, "did the revivalists do to those B-wings?" 

Unbelievably, the Busters weren't wiped out. Kylo studied the hologram above their heads with a some awe. The Revivalist TIE fighters were having a wonderful time zipping into swarms of identical First Order fighters and firing in all directions. But even with the fighters they were bringing down, there were still dozens haring each Buster fighter. 

"They armed them, I made them ready," Poe said with a matter-of-fact tone that seemed blase in the situation. "There's a squadron of X-wings heading up to shepherd the Busters back down. I'm leaving our TIE fighters up there to cause some mayhem. X-wings one seven through two six. Same authorization." 

Hux tapped out a sequence on the star chart. The entire hall was silent, people working at their stations and sneaking glances up at the star chart in turn. Some stood silently at their desks, looking up at the huge orange chart, twisting their hands together.  

"They’re marshalling invasion force," Sergeant Major Rose piped from her tangle of communications. 

"Thank you. First drop off is coming down, Finn," Hux said into the comm. Above him, the assorted fighters swooped and swarmed around the surviving cruisers. It looked like schools of fish, harrying some massive, beleaguered whale. 

"What is she doing up there?" Hux cursed softly. "She's never been so sloppy. The destroyers can't engage to attack the Busters or the other fighters with that many TIEs out. And why are they so uncoordinated? She could do more with far fewer fighters." 

"Incompetence we're benefiting from," Kylo reminded Hux softly.

"She's not incompetent. She never has been. The assault hasn't even begun yet; we've lost only sixty-four people including pilots and sun farmers. The First Order has lost thousands of officers, troopers, pilots and assorted personnel," Hux growled. He looked more agitated by the news than pleased. "We're doing fairly well given the circumstances but she's mismanaging this." 

Kylo realized there was tension creeping between his shoulders: Hux had realized something he had been ignoring. Phasma was a practiced battle-master who had already nearly killed them with a fraction of the forces she had now. This was wrong. Seomthing had changed. They’d been readying themselves for a battering ram and the force of that first knock wasn’t coming.

Above them the last of the Busters peeled away, streaking back towards the planet with the X-wings covering their retreat and following them. 

Hux let out a breath. 

"Gave the order to withdraw," Poe said a little tensely. "The Busters would be dead before they could saw another star destroyer apart." 

"You were sawing destroyers apart with the B-Wings?" Hux said incredulously. Then he remembered himself. "Of course you are. Sure. Fine, they'll be more effective against the smaller targets. Keep the X-wings high and focused on the TIEs. Keep them in a cluster." 

"You got it," Poe sounded relieved. "X-wings can herd them in. It might give us some cover from any more fire from the destroyers."

"Troopers to be deployed," called Sergeant Rose, leaning away from her desk,."The cruisers are to remain in orbit above, and deploy more as needed." 

The remaining cruisers had huddled up with their TIEs protectively swarming them. The chunks and debris left by their broken sister ships were floating in a cloud around them.

"Acknowledged," Hux nodded absently, then spoke into his com, "Poe, Finn, stormtroopers are landing now." 

"We're ready," Poe said. 

"Ground troops ready. Also for future reference? The Resistance absolutely needs to recruit some scholars and xenobiologists," Finn was with certain fervor, "And engineers. And historical hobbyists.”

"I hoped you'd enjoy your personnel, Finn," Hux said, he turned from the hologram and looked out the wide open window. "I knew you'd find the hobbists something to do." 

Catching Hux's eye, Kylo made a tiny helpless,  _ what  _ gesture.

Hux smirked, actually smirked. "I haven't the slighted idea what they've actually done. But I know what they're capable of. And as we've suffered from before, Finn is able to inspire considerable loyalty and ability from those around him." 

Kylo instinctively reached up to his shoulder, where Finn had cut down into the bone. Then looked out the window, rubbing the edges of the scar on his face. 

The sun was almost below the foothills now, and the sky was washed pink and lavender. High up but descending fast, trooper transports were a beautiful pale peach comet that trailed glittering TIE fighters like a tail. Kylo felt sick, the inaction was almost painful, and the the tension between his shoulders wasn’t easing. Those troopers, those TIE fighters would be flying out of that setting sun in minutes. 

Without realizing it, Kylo found himself standing closer to Hux. 

"The majority of strategy is simple," Hux said quietly, gazing at the sunset and the beautiful shining ships. "People go on at length about timing and division of forces and what side of the river to place your troops, where the wind should be blowing from when you make your bombing run. However, quite simply all you have to do, is determine what questions your opponent will be asking, and then answer them." 

The bright sky outside had full command of everyone's attention. The cruisers were grey and pink ghosts overhead, just visible beyond the ceiling of the sky. The first wave of trooper transports were flying lower now, and Kylo, standing beside Hux, let out a breath as their shoulders touched. 

"So what's your answer?" Kylo had to ask. 

The transports streaked on down unchallenged, some trailing smoke, but more were coming in, and more behind them. The setting sun looked shaded by their numbers. 

"Fuck you, Phasma," Hux replied with acid. 

Kylo glanced at Hux. He faced calmly into the sun, the last of the light bright on his hair and eyes. 

There was a boom outside, and Kylo snapped his attention back to the fighters. 

A transport had abruptly dropped out of the sky. There was a horizontal streak of smoke, and a fire at its very bottom. Before Kylo could speak, another transport let off a little puff of smoke on its port side, then dropped straight down without any further preamble. The TIE fighters scrambled to their defense. 

Then Poe was among them. 

Kylo gasped: they had flown low, from behind the transports and then darted straight up. The squadron of Poe’s A-wings were bright lively shapes among the blocks of black and white transports and feather-light TIEs. They darted and swooped and climbed, flying up in a column through the descending troopers, firing up and wreaking havoc on the unprepared fighters. 

"Poe, if you could concentrate fire on the highest transports, some may take out those below them," Hux said into the comm. 

"If you can line them up a little, I have something here that'll be useful. Nice arc of them," Finn added. 

"You got it!" Poe whooped happily. The crack and whine of cannon fire and came through the comm. He had to be the A-wing out front, ship-lengths ahead of the rest of his squadron, ducking and weaving between the beleaguered transport ships as though they were standing still. He left a trail of fire and smoke in his wake.

Kylo held his breath, the TIE fighters flocked anxiously around the troopers, but with the A-wings already among the transport ships, most TIEs wouldn't risk taking out forty troopers for the chance of hitting one Revivalist. The X-wings were joining in the dogfight just as the TIEs seemed to gain a measure of understanding. They flicked and dodged around between the transports and each other, drawing the TIEs away from the densely packed column of transports and Poe's A-wings. 

The transports were dropping in twos and threes now, those that had already survived the near vertical bombing run were hurrying down, forward in a bound curve. 

"How's that, Finn?" Poe called. 

His A-wing had reached the very top of the column of transports, and flashed suddenly as he reached an altitude where the last rays of the usn over the mountain caught him. Kylo watched, head back, mouth open as the best pilot in the Resistance banked around, tipped his nose down, and accelerated towards the ground, diving back the way he'd come. 

"Perfect, stay clear of the lower half of the transports," Finn said quickly. "Ready the Winger!" 

Both Finn and Poe shouted instructions to those around them; the X-wings and A-wings that were in the lower half of the transports scattered, cutting up and into the swarm of TIE fighters who had been trying to push them down. A cloud of confused, rapid and poorly timed course adjustments from the TIE fighters began, all at the same elevation.The overwhelming result being mass confusion as pilots redirected into each other. 

Into this roiling mass of confused TIEs and nervous, running transports, Finn's contribution sailed with silent majesty. 

It was a rock. Several rocks. Each only slightly smaller than a TIE fighter, and trailing fire. 

"Trebuchets," Hux remarked. He didn't have his mouth hanging open, damn him, but he must have been as surprised as Kylo. "They had those armed in good time." 

The burning rocks smashed through TIEs and transports, before starting the downward arc of their trajectory. The man-made meteors landed with a splintering crash in the forest beyond the town. They were trailed by a spinning, howling mess of TIEs and transports which came crashing down hard after it. 

Poe and Finn both howled in delight and laughter over the comm. The echo of the laughter was just audible from the far end of the town.

Revivalists who had totally abandoned their work stations were watching through the shattered open wall and laughed and pointed. Those who were still at their desks were craning around to watch out the window.

"Alright," Kylo said flatly, "that looked like some rocks. Which were on fire. Discuss." 

"The fire wasn't necessary but between historical hobbiests and xenobiologists, you'll have to expect a certain flexibility to what they determine to be accurate." 

"What the hell kind of wildlife do they have here to make the use of  _ trebuchets _ is preferable? And the TIEs?" Kylo asked, watching the swarm try and reform around the surviving transports, desperate to protect them from Poe's second bombing run. He was running circles around them, corralling them tighter and tighter into a knot. 

"They're missing someone to coordinate them," Hux frowned, his face darkening, "Phasma's misusing them. She should have deployed only a squadron per transport, and had them focus only on those threats to their assigned craft. Instead," he tipped his chin up to indicate the unruly swarm being managed quite well by Poe and a handful of rickety, well coordinated A and X-wings. The two different crafts flying in concurrent opposite rings as the transports resolutely kept descending. 

"Ready again!" Finn called. 

Poe whooped and the Revivalist fighters scattered abruptly. Before the TIEs or transports could react, another huge shower of stone and fire went sailing into their midst. 

"I understand that she wanted to get them out of the destroyers so they wouldn't be brought down if another ship was lost, but she deployed too early," Hux was staring up at the chart again. "She's never been flighty." 

"First transport has landed successfully," Finn reported over the com. 

"Are all our people off that hill side?" Toni Bow piped up, startling both Hux and Kylo. They both swung around to look at the surveyor, she had a comm of her own, and a map of the area before her with some frightening looking markers in red. 

"We're well clear, Toni," Finn said over the comm.

"Well clear of what?" Poe asked, slightly breathless. 

He was flying hard and fast around the remaining trooper transports that were in the air, and the TIEs pursuing him couldn't touch him. The A-wings seemed happy to follow suit, snatching kills while the pilots were distracted trying to bring down Poe. The fight was growing closer as the last surviving transport ships made a desperate bid through the last stretch to the foothills to deploy. 

More people had gathered at the open window, junior officers with nothing to do anymore but watch the attack come to them. Graves Dark and his band of white haired aides weren’t even paying attention to their scouting imagery anymore.

"Toni, what are you doing?" Hux asked with forced calm. 

"Amusing the enemy," Toni replied blithely with her head bent over her datapad. She was cradling it in both hands and typing furiously with her thumbs. She did not glance up at Hux.

"All the transports are on the ground," Poe said over the comm, supremely frustrated. The A- and X-wings were flying up to reform, ready to receive the next wave of TIE’s and transports. 

"Amusing the enemy with what?" Hux asked, his calm facade cracking slightly as his attention switched rapidly from Poe, to the hillside glinting with white trooper armor, to Toni.

"More troopers being deployed," Rose Hilm reported. She seemed to be the only person not totally absorbed in the wild dogfight taking place in black and gold silhouette before the sunset.

"That's a mistake," Hux said flatly. "She's played this before; she's already misplayed and now she's reacting impulsively." He shook his head. For the first time, Hux raised a hand from where they were both clasped behind him and tugged at his hair in frustration. It was an absent minded, childish gesture. It didn’t belong to a commander. 

The last several days had been eventful, but this was the first time Kylo had seen Hux actually rattled.

"Poe, the TIEs are going to make a corridor for the transports to fly down through.” Hux called. “Try and disrupt that. Toni, what have you been doing?" 

"You got it." Poe shot upwards, turning slightly as he curved up and around the black streak of TIEs. They were forming up into a brittle, black road over the setting sun, leading up to space. Poe's bright, darting A- and X-wings looked tiny as they flitted and streaked through the column.

"Finn, reload that winger," Hux added. "Toni," he looked at the surveyor, "what the  _ hell  _ are you doing?" 

"I shall make the earth move, sir," Toni said, looking up from her datapad saluting happily with the wrong hand. “Like we were planning. There’s gold in those hills, I’ve been dying to try this.

"Oh, I see," Hux said dourly. “Is that all.” 

"Almost ready," Finn said. "Poe, you're all clear?" 

Poe was high up with the rest of his squadron, darting around the TIEs, shooting in and down among them, TIEs tumbling past and down their fellows, taking out the ones below as he climbed higher. 

"Don't go too high," Kylo snapped suddenly as he took an involuntary step towards the open wall. "The star destroyers are overhead--"  He was cut off by a series of hisses as heavy missiles hit the atmosphere. Brisk, angry noises, and then white tails of cannon fire came streaking down from space towards Poe. 

Kylo's breath caught. Poe was far out ahead, much higher than his squadron. In range of the destroyers’ weapons.

"They've fired," Hux snarled. "Poe, move!" 

Before he could say more, Poe's ship tipped, spun and dove. He crashed through the TIEs and streaked down through them, accelerating and firing blindly as he went. TIEs who flocked to block him, or fire at him were shot down or torn to pieces as he accelerated downward. A trail of white fire darted after him, into the TIEs and their milling uncertainty, and followed in his wake. 

Toni had frozen with her hand over her mouth. Rose Hilm leaned away from her desk with an expression of slight perplexity on her soft face. The entire room had stopped and was staring out the window at Poe trailing fire towards the hills. The heavy missiles, locked on his ship, accelerating after him.

The other A-wings and X-wings ducked down, following Poe and shooting at the TIEs that broke formation or tried to get away from the whirling, confused smokey column of their fellows.

"More trooper transports about to be deployed," Rose Hilm said into the silence. Everyone was watching as Poe fell like a comet through the very heart of the enemy fighters. 

"Poe," Finn's voice was tight. 

"I got this," Poe panted. He was accelerating; they could hear his fighter rattling around him. Whatever the Revivalists had done to the A-wings to make these ancient fighters viable wasn't holding up against an accelerated dive through a mass of fire and exploding fighters. The missiles launched by the cruisers were visible now, slender silver needles chasing Poe down through the surviving stack of TIE fighters, sending more tumbling towards the ground.

Above the chaos, the second wave of transport ships became visible, hurrying down through Poe's chaotic fiery wake.

"Finn, if you've got a shot take it," Hux ordered. 

"Not until he's clear," Finn said, his voice tight.

Hux set his jaw but didn't reply.

The transports on the hill had disgorged their troopers into immaculate white lines. 

Hux took a breath. "Do it now, Toni," He didn’t take his eyes off the shortening gap between Poe and the missiles chasing him. "Now, tell them now. Poe, you'll have cover, pull up." 

"Cover?" Poe gasped. 

"Poe," Finn said, more desperately. Poe's distance to the ground could be measured in ship lengths now. The silver needles of the missiles were almost as close behind him.

Kylo realized he was holding his breath.

Poe's ship lanced down, then the last of the light flashed off his wings as it turned, and the entire line of foothills exploded.

The explosion staggered Kylo where he stood; the holograms flickered and several people in the command hall shrieked. The chandelier rocked and chimed above them. 

"That was not a field test," Toni said triumphantly as the floor shook. 

The first blast had no fire to it, but the TIEs were thrown up and the what was left of the protective stack of fighters scattered. Out of the clouds of dust and stone, the entire hillside lunged downwards, rocks and trees and dust and snow all hurtling down towards the neat, orderly lines of Phasma's first invasion force. They broke ranks and ran. A second later, the sliding mass of mountain engulfed them. Above it all, a wall of dust rose and coiled and threw up broken trees, snow and shattered rocks. 

Poe shot out of it. The white cannon blasts buried into the mountainside behind him, into the hot mass of shattered rock and whirling trees. 

Finn gave a bark of pure relief.

"Thank you, Toni," Hux said, and Toni beamed.

He managed not to sound like he'd been holding his breath. 

"Cover," Poe gasped, "right, alright, forgot to adjust the expectations to fucking crazy." 

"A violently rising mountainside is adequate cover," Hux clasped his hands behind him.

"The thing is, you're not wrong," Poe gave a brief, breathless laugh, and then spoke rapidly to the other pilots in the squadron, rallying them to him and doing a head count. The blast had knocked both the First order and revivalist fighters, some taken out by flying bits of mountain or an errant tree.

Poe called a channel change to Finn, and they both dropped from the shared comm line. 

"Phasma might have been in that," Kylo murmured. He was watching the hillside settle, and the TIE fighters rally in a shaken, vastly diminished group to shield the next wave of troopers. 

"I'm not optimistic," Hux replied levelly. "She's made bad decisions, but the bulk of her attack is still sound. And she still has the numbers. We'll know she's dead when the TIEs attack the building directly. As long as we need to be killed by hand, she can't use too much brute force.” 

"We're back," Finn said over the comm. His voice was shaking slightly.

"Go ahead Finn," Poe called. “If your Wingers are ready.”

Another shower of huge, fiery boulders sailed with ludicrous silence and pomposity through the air into the setting sun. The barrage crashed in a blaze of fire into a transport, through a tangle of TIEs and was lost to view through the smoke of the settling hillside. 

"Do landslides like that happen often, Toni?" Hux asked absently. The mountain side was still sliding down into the hills.  

"Sure," Toni said, "We're well practiced in them here. Easier to get at the insides of the mountain for mining if you take a few feet off the surface. Also clears the area of habitat and kills all the surrounding wildlife. Usually we wait until an area’s been clear cut. Though the Republicans were starting to kick at the practice for some reason." 

"Ahh, colonists," Hux muttered softly. 

"You knew she'd set the entire hillside to explode?" Kylo asked, touching on a point he thought was fairly vital that no one else seemed interested in bringing up. 

"An assumption," Hux shrugged. "But a fairly safe one. She seemed keen on the explosives. Her people all had extensive experience in mining and if there is gold in the mountain she’d know how to tear it open."

The second wave of transports, having enjoyed a relatively uneventful descent and without having to deal with a shower of flying boulders the size of single family dwellings, an explosion that blew a hillside to rubble, a lancing fighter trailing cannon fire, and the harassment of a diminished fleet of A-, B- and X-wings, were, unbelievably, nearly landing.

"Finn, once they land, take what measures are necessary. It's down to you," Hux said through the comm. 

"Got it," Finn, was still slightly breathless after Poe's dive. "I'm pulling back as soon as we've packed up here." 

Phasma should have been here already, should have been in that first transport, should have led an army, minutes ago through the city and stormed the town hall. Kylo rolled his shoulders and chewed his lip.

"Transports are landing," Rose called, "East in the forest, two locations." 

"Poe, that's a go for your ambush squads," Hux called. 

"Got it," Poe flew ahead of his squadron of X-wings and A-wings. As they watched, two sections split off and raced past the tower on either side. Poe's fighters continued to make make brisk, conservative bombing runs, moving fast and keeping clear of each other, targeting the TIEs and the troopers under them. Kylo wondered where the pilots had come from. The Republic’s military had seemed largely ceremonial, but these pilots moved with practice and a lot of kill to them. The defensive formation of TIEs broke up, dropping down to engage the brunt of Poe's fighters and draw fire from the troopers. 

Moments later, the first block of troopers hit the level ground below the shattered hillside on the edge of the town. They started moving fast, blasters up, streaming in white lines through the razed city, branching out, ready to attack. 

The ruined town bit back. All over, troopers suddenly vanished:, dropping into pits or blown apart with no warning. They began shooting wildly at anything that moved, which was usually each other. The town was empty. 

"Another wave of transports inbound," Rose Hilm announced.

"It's like ringing a dinner bell," Hux muttered. 

"For who?" Kylo watched as the first few troopers made it out of the minefield of the razed city, staggering and shocked. The two wings of the town hall, bristling with weaponry, suddenly focused. The troopers looked up into roughly three hundred blasters and angry Revivalists, and died. 

"Troopers landed behind the town hall," Poe reported. He was still harrying the TIE fighters, but that fight, at least, was turning into a deadlock. The TIEs were in a tight, whirling formation, gathering up Poe's forces. Only a handful of fighters were able to leave the dogfight to harass the third wave of transports coming down. "Both ambush sites, six transports in each.” 

Hux opened his mouth and then the com crackled again.

"Marblehead's coordinating his ambush on the troopers behind us now," Finn said, sounding slightly distracted. 

As Kylo looked out at the chaos of the town, a huge wall of flame shot up, dividing the advancing troopers into two screaming groups trying not to be burned alive. 

"Set up the next one," Finn added, facing away from the com but still audible. "Yeah, Hux, Marblehead's got a hundred fighters at each of the two sites where the trooper ships have come down. So the troopers will meet resistance." 

The coldness in his voice as he added this last comment was disconcerting. 

"I'm sure they'll manage," Hux said with casual confidence. He watched as the troopers, trickling through the town, were starting to speed up. Each wave was learning where they could and could not step by trial and fatal error. It was forcing them to cluster, meaning that when a trap was triggered, it could take out a dozen. The traps and falls were slowing their march as they moved tentatively almost in single file in several dozen little streams through the town. But they were getting through. 

"The lights are ready above the courtyard," Finn said. "Just say when."

"So," Hux softly to Kylo, "a three sided attack, and more coming down." His jaw tightened, "Where is she?" 

Kylo shook his head. 

"Sergeant Cheer?" Hux turned to look towards the ordnance officer. 

She hadn't kept watching the battle unfold, but as soon as the troops had reached the city, she had begun distributing weapons to the technicians and recruits. Toni Bow looked slightly uneasy with a blaster over her shoulder. A few others l were looking at their weapons with distaste. 

"Sir," she held out a blaster to Kylo.

He waved her off and turned back to the open wall. He had his back to a room full of heavily armed Revivalist officers and it felt like the safest option. He was still sending little probes of inquiry into the minds around him, almost at random, but the people in this room were terrified of troopers, and had nearly forgotten about him. 

He forced himself to focus, tried to steady his breathing. He had Hux beside him, readying his sniper rifle. They were standing together, watching a trail of hurrying transport ships and their attendant TIE, fighters. The only forces Hux commanded right now were a motley assortment of mostly civilians who had alarming methods of pest control and mining expertise that nearly leveled a mountain. There weren’t a lot of answers for the city full of troopers mincing their way forward in single file with Phasma nowhere in sight. The huge, orange sun was setting in a glorious wash of pink and aqua sky under orange clouds and misty through golden smoke, dust and falling ash. 

"There are so many other ways to see the sunset," Kylo said. There was rarely an opportunity to examine his life or his choices, but this moment was so wildly outside of his experience he had to examine it. 

Hux just snorted. He finished readying the sniper rifle, and then, as the third wave of transport ships landed on the hill top. It began to disgorge their troopers as fast as they could and Hux propped the barrel of his rifle on one of the obnoxiously overdone thrones’ gold filigreed headboards. He sighted down the scope into the setting sun and fired. Away down in the town, a trooper's knee gave out, and they fell gracelessly to the side. A landmine exploded, and those tightly packed, careful troopers in single file around their fallen comrade were blown away. 

"Not that your reflection about the natural beauty of a Republican colony planet razed by extremists isn't exactly why I got out of my pathetically undersized bunk this morning," Hux said, tipping the rifle to take aim again, "but I need you to give me a few insights. Where is Phasma? Find her." 

Kylo hesitated. 

"Finn, ready with the lights?" Hux asked, sighting down the barrel.

"Ready." 

"All personnel to the window; make ready to fire on the troopers," Hux called. 

Somewhat to Kylo's surprise, everyone who could leave their station gathered at the huge, wide open wall. Those closest lay on their bellies to shoot, then those behind them took a knee, and those in the third row stood tall. They left a prudent gap for Hux to shoot through.

Below them, the rate of blaster fire in the courtyard was accelerating as more troopers were able to get through. 

"Personnel armed and ready sir," Sergeant Cheer reported as she stood shoulder to shoulder with a orderly twice her age and half her size, both bearing identical blasters.

Past the courtyard, the ruins of the town and the shattered hillside beyond were crowded with troopers. A great white swath of them extended from the burning buildings to the swarming TIE fighters in the distance where they were disembarking. 

"Fire as the lights go up," Hux said to his surrounding officers. "Finn, light them up now."

The troopers, back lit by the setting sun, were suddenly awash in stark violet-white light. They stopped cold, many throwing up their hands or shaking their heads. 

Several hundred blaster shots roared out from the town hall and into the blinded troopers.  The Revivalists barely had to aim. 

Hux was standing with his feet apart, the long rifle held easily in both hands, propped on the worthless throne of his predecessor. “Kylo, Phasma, find her.” 

Kylo hesitated again. He couldn't leave Hux undefended. Not now when troopers were hammering towards them with every second. Not while any of the people in this room could turn on him.

"We made a deal, Kylo," Hux growled. He spared a glance up, "We have an agreement. I need you to do as I say." 

“Alright,” Kylo took a breath, tried to push his mind out, faltered, and succeeded. The rigid focus he'd been maintaining on the room and the people around Hux shattered with a few gasping efforts. He couldn’t see the sun setting, couldn’t seePoe's fighters running the TIEs into the ground, couldn't hear the explosions from the mines in the city or the whoop and call of the recruits using their traps. Couldn’t feel Finn's soldiers in the two wings of the town hall, or his recruits and their traps and tricks and oddities. 

He was in the dark, pushing out like a wave, buffeted by tiny points of consciousness all around him. He tried to hold on to everything he could feel, sort through it. People all around him, flying the fighting and moving in formation and dying with blood in their mouths. Emotions running wild. Confused and furious troopers and recruits with guns who still felt like civilians and Revivalists with their teeth bared and enemies in front of them. All the minds around him, so many strangers and so many strange thoughts and so much anger and fear.

Poe: a bright, darting light on the edge of his search outward. The ugly, torn fragments of the wounds Kylo had carved into his mind rough and dark. 

Finn felt sure and solid and ready, lightning in a bottle. 

Hux as a ocean frozen over the teeth of a storm, shooting with calm ferocity into an oncoming army.

Then, another familiar mind. A silent dark pool in the dimness of dawn, an undertow with endless depth: current and force and cold.

"Phasma's here," Kylo murmured, still in the dark. "Probably with one of the ambush teams." 

"She'd enjoy that." Hux came up from the scope of his rifle briefly. "Finn, Phasma is in here somewhere. We can't see her from here, so she's with the ambush teams behind the Town Hall." 

"I'll let Marblehead know," Finn called over the comm, "They know what she looks like." 

"Left of the fountain," Kylo heard himself say. He dragged himself back into his body, feeling slightly shaken and cold. He blinked as he opened his eyes, the last of the sunset felt painfully bright.

Hux's rifle snapped up and into place. Half a beat and a shot whined out. The gunners stationed in the two wings of the town hall made an effective firing squad, but once a trooper had pushed through the cross fire and was between the two wings of the building, neither side could shoot at them without risking their allies on the other side. 

The razed city was full of troopers: they were climbing over the bodies of their fallen comrades in some places, confident that on them at least, they were safe from traps. There was a steady roar of blaster fire from both sides: the troopers firing in towards the town hall, and the Revivalists firing back out at them. TIE fighters scrapped overhead with Poe's squadrons. Half of them had fallen, Kylo saw with a jolt. In the time it had taken to close his eyes and seek Phasma out of the crowding mire of people around him, the sun had slipped down far enough to let some of the stars out. Kylo couldn't see Poe anymore. The bombed out remains of the town were ablaze and still more transport ships were landing, even more troops piling out into the fiery battlefield. 

There had to be five hundred people shooting as fast as they could with little need to aim into the oncoming troops, and they couldn't shoot fast enough to stop the tide of trooper resolutely surging towards them. 

The door opened behind them, and Kylo glanced back to see a small team in immaculate Republican uniforms hurry in and make for Rose Hilm's desk. Some of them looked vaguely familiar, and he turned back to look for Poe, try and spot Finn in the for ocean of struggling bodies below.

"Kylo?" Hux asked absently, keeping up a steady rate of fire that was cutting troopers down as they picked their way down the ruined hillside half a mile away. 

"Nothing."

Below them in the town, another wall of Finn's fire went up. The troopers, having watched their predecessors fall to that tactic, were more wary, and even though they were packed in close, and the fiery swath it carved out of the ranks was quickly filled again.

Hux was curved around his rifle, cheek to stock, barely moving as he shot out again and again and again. His shots lancing down in terrible silent accuracy through the wide open wall. 

Kylo felt himself turn unconsciously. His body moved on its own, before his brain could understand why. But it suddenly occurred to him that there was not a single member of the Revivalist Authority that had worn an immaculate uniform. 

His gut went cold. In their last fight, Finn had hit Phasma, and that had probably damaged her armour. 

He remembered that everyone was directly in front of him, and facing a sixty foot drop from an open wall. Remembered everyone with a weapon was carefully intertwined, shoulder to shoulder, piled in on one another, and firing outward. 

And everyone had their backs to Phasma as she stalked towards them, glorious, beautiful and unarmored.

A blast was already in the air before him. Before he could even see Phasma with her blaster up, before he could do anything.

He had an image of Hux's back torn open, the whiteness of bone peeking jagged from the torn muscle and skin. Blood matting the shaggy, overgrown hair on the nape of his neck. Hux dying draped over that stupid gilded throne. Every vision of every death roared through Kylo's mind in that instant, all the terror and pain and inevitability of that last hard fought breath. 

Every time, Kylo hadn't been there, he hadn't saved him. 

This time he just couldn't. 

He moved with a quickness that wasn't natural. This was recklessness and fury born of desperation and terror and a thousand images of Hux dying. He shoved Hux sideways and reached out.

His right hand caught the blast against his palm: the focus wasn't there to freeze it and he could only make the energy splash hard against his hand instead of ripping through. The splatter of fractured energy pelted into his chest, shoulder and face and the blast slammed his hand back into his shoulder and made him stumble. He screamed, his hand in agony. The jagged, wound on his side blazed in sympathy. Behind him, some of the Revivalists barked or shrieked in pain and shock. 

Thrown aside, Hux landed hard with his rifle clattering after him. 

"Hold position," Kylo snapped at the backs of the Revivalists. He didn't need them to turn and panic, couldn't have them trample one another or back each other out that open wall and onto a sixty foot fall. He didn't check to see if they followed his orders as readily as Hux's. 

"Fire," Phasma barked. Her voice sounded no less authoritative without the helmet. 

Her six guards, all in immaculate Republican uniform, aimed, fired, and formed up protectively around her. They were advancing in a practiced formation. 

He was aware of the backs of the Revivalists behind him, aware of the void beyond them. Hux was prone, back to Phasma and her guard, and every shot in those blasters was aiming for Hux. 

Kylo lunged sideways, hand outstreched, catching the blasts on his palm and deflecting them up and away from him in rapid succession. He had barely more control this time.  Kylo's hand, bloody and burnt and trembling with pain, struggled to hold a Force shield before it. This was costing him: his right arm buzzed with near numbness, most of his right hand was in agony. He couldn't feel his two smallest fingers. He dropped down to one knee, only partially on purpose, and stayed crouched over Hux. Kylo fought to focus around the pain in this hand, fought to calm his panting, desperately tried to drag his furious, terrified mind into order. 

This was a nightmare scenario: Kylo and Hux pinned between Phasma and her elite on one side, and a death fall on the other.

We know what she looks like, Kylo thought, furious with himself. Nearly seven feet of shining chromium walking in the lead of several hundred troopers really does draw the eye; even when it's not visible, you look for it. You don't look for the striking, tall woman with neat hair who's walking with purpose and a handful of aides in a crisis. Phasma hadn't been sloppy when she ordered this attack at all, she'd just underestimated how effective the Revivalists civilian recruits would be against her seconds in command. She hadn't been commanding this attack at all.

She'd known Hux would anticipate everything she'd done. So she'd done something she had never tried before: she’d stepped away from command. 

Her guards were already firing again, and Kylo stayed low over Hux and snapped both hands out. Another desperate move that he hadn’t expected to make. He just knew that Hux was here, dazed on the floor and he wasn’t dying in this nightmare. Here and now, Kylo was here, and he could protect him. 

A surge of Force energy washed up and through him, choking him briefly, leaving a taste in his mouth like ozone. The blasts deflected up and around them, some slamming into the walls and other out the open wall. One earthed in the dias at Kylo's feet and sent up a splash of chipped and scorched stone up into his side. 

The wound in his side was an agonizingly familiar pain. He shouldn’t have thought of it, shouldn’t have allowed that pain to trouble him, because suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Suddenly he was back on the catwalk bathed in red light with his dying father falling away from him. He was in the snowy forest forcing his failing body to sit up. He was lying in the snow looking up at the shattering treetops above him while he bled out crying quietly in helpless rage. Hux's face above his before he blacked out was the last thing he saw before he woke up on that slow medical transport alone. He didn't know if Hux had survived the destruction of Starkiller. He didn't know why he had wanted him to. 

He’d been terrified for so long. He’d been terrified for Hux for so, so long.

Kylo slammed his left fist into his side. The pain went hot and red and jagged inside him and he roared out and shoved his bloody right hand out. 

He felt nearly blind, energy was crackling through him, his awareness so much wider and richer than sight or sound could bring him. The taste of ozone was in his mouth and sparking between his fingers, painful little stabs all over his body he didn’t bother to control. 

Kylo made a fist, and yanked back.

The chandelier came free of the ceiling with a tiny and inappropriate tinkle. Then it hung in mid air for one breathless, silent, beautiful moment. Light sparkled and flashed over the walls. Kylo bared his teeth in a grin. Phasma’s confidence was shaken into confusion for an instant.

The crash that followed knocked Phasma and her guards to the floor. Shards of glass flew up and out in a huge, glittering explosion, reflecting light around the room in flashes. Kylo staggered, suddenly light headed, and dropped over Hux, breathless. The Revivalists shrieked; those standing fell forwards into those kneeling, and some of them fell forwards. Someone screamed as they went over the edge out the window.

"Kylo," Hux gasped. He was up on his knees over Kylo, stroking over his cheek, pushing his hair back, "Breathe. Breathe? Kylo do not die, I’ll kill you myself I swear--" 

Phasma, stunned and deafened on her hands and knees in broken glass, was already struggling to pull her rifle up. Her guards were just as bewildered and shaken looking around wildly for any other thread. Curiosity was a terrible waste in a guard. 

Kylo, eyes closed, still breathless, turned his head and pressed a kiss into Hux's palm. He got his grip on his sabre and breathed a little easier. It cracked to life as he opened his eyes, and Kylo lunged forward over Hux, off the dias, already halfway into a swing. The first two guards saw the red light of the sabre but died before they could flinch. 

He slid forward on broken glass as he landed, cleaving his sabre forward in a spin that cut another elite guard in half. He was  bearing down on Phasma with all his fury and momentum, focusing his pain into movement and his terror into anger. He didn’t care about the guards with two already down, he lunged for Phasma.

Then, abruptly, Kylo realized his mistake. These were elite guards, who had trained with Phasma all their lives. And one of them had gotten inside his reach, risen up into his turn, and had their blaster coming to aim at his face. Before Kylo could move, or think, before he could push the barrel away or block the shot, a rifle shot cracked out, and the elite's head snapped back quietly, and they and their blaster dropped with a sigh. 

"Not him, you fucker," Hux snarled from the dias. 

Kylo could breathe again. His sabre flicked out, cutting a fourth guard's blaster neatly in half before it could be leveled up at him. He ducked low, and Hux shot over his head. The guard fell back without a sound. Kylo glanced back and found Hux crouched on one knee on the dias over Kylo, his rifle held in both hands.

"Go to contingency," Phasma snapped. 

She was on her feet again backing away. She was leaving. Her remaining two guards were backing out after her, one after another, two human meat shields that were going to die rather than let Phasma come to harm. 

She'd always believed that obedience was better than loyalty. 

Kylo struggled to reach down and into himself, needing to let that savage thing inside him out. But just as he found it, two blaster shots howled over him in quick succession, and both guards staggered and fell. Phasma was alone, unprotected, her weapon already raised. 

"Take her," Hux barked. 

Phasma fired.

Kylo's hand snapped out with the full force of the panicked rage and pain and terror that had been warring in him for days. Lightning crackled out, the shot from Phasma's blaster harmlessly being consumed by one bright arc. Phasma screamed as lightning it struck her. 

The pain in his right hand became so intense he gasped and nearly fell headlong. The lightning snapped off abruptly and Phasma gasped for breath across the hall. She was down on one knee, broken glass from the chandelier peppering her skin in bloody in vicious little bloody bites. She looked up at Kylo and Hux with such vitriolic focus and determination it took Kylo a moment to remember that Phasma didn't actually loathe them. She was completing an objective. She was following orders. 

Phasma was beautiful, Kylo'd known that, though her abilities, drive and competence had always been far more valuable and relevant. But it was startling now, her lovely skin and bright blue eyes and shining blond hair and all of her was trying to kill them. She wasn't even particularly moved by it; she was fighting because it's what she did, what she had been told to do. What she had been grown for. 

"Keep her alive," Hux called suddenly.

Phasma brought her blaster up with an effort that was painful just to watch, and rammed the butt to her shoulder and took aim.

Kylo snapped his hand out and she froze, eyes wide, the trigger already halfway down. His arm trembled and his hand was in agony. He felt the familiar roar of his power ebb and flicker.

"I can't hold her," Kylo gasped. 

"Rose," Hux dropped his rifle, sprang past Kylo, landed in the broken glass and started running. "Communications!" 

"Right you are love!" 

The fact that Sergeant Major Rose Hilm was still alive sent a wholly unexpected relief through him. For a moment, Kylo remembered that he and Hux weren’t alone in the room. The revivalist firing squad was still shooting as fast as they could into the courtyard, the officers still at their stations calling orders. Kylo and Hux on Phasma, skating over broken glass in the centre of the room.

Hux reached Phasma just as Kylo gave a bark of frustration and terror, and his hold over her broke. 

She whipped the blaster up and around, aiming savagely for Hux's face. Hux either heard Kylo lose his grip or saw it coming and jerked back, only catching a glancing blow. Phasma came up after him with a speed and determination that yanked Kylo to his feet and sent him running forward. Hux and Phasma traded blows on shards of broken glass beside the wreckage of the chandelier, Hux blocking her hits with already bruised arms, his ribs still broken. But Hux was holding her there, waiting for Kylo, knocking her blaster away every time she went to raise it. 

"I'm here," Kylo gasped. He turned in the last step before he reached them, felt his back hit Hux's, and pushed his left shoulder back. 

Hux turned easily with him, back to back as Kylo whirled around Hux and Hux ducked safely behind him. Kylo was already bringing his sabre down in an wicked swing that would cut Phasma’s arm off. Phasma caught his eye and she snarled at him with her teeth bared. Kylo snarled back; alive didn't have to mean whole. 

The force of his swing, with the full momentum of his turning body, of Hux's shoulder pushing him on, jerked to a stop. 

Phasma's blaster clattered into the broken glass at his feet. She had caught his wrist in both hands. 

Kylo gasped. Both he and Phasma stared at his bloody, burnt right hand, at the crackling red sabre with wide eyes. Her white hands, scarred and rough and strong, wrapped around his wrist, the tatty black uniform looking shabbier in her hands. She looked up at him, met his gaze, slipped her hands expertly over his arm and hand, and broke his wrist. 

Kylo's body reacted before he could, his left hand snapping up with an unintended Force push roaring wildly out of him to shove her back, away from him. His sabre fell from his bloody, lifeless hand. Phasma skidded over the broken glass, stumbled back and caught her balance and looked up at him with the same flat, hostile determination. 

Then Hux came out from behind Kylo and threw a handful of shattered glass at her face. Kylo, clutching his wrist, stared in amazement as Phasma flinched, shutting her eyes and turning her face away. But Hux was still moving, fast and light and unpredicatble: he stooped beside Kylo for a hot second then lunged up and forwards, Kylo's sabre in his hand.  

He held the blade in a reverse grip, and flicked it out, sweeping it in a slash across Phasma's chest. She barked in shock and pain and backed up a step. Blindly she lashed out with her right fist, and Hux ducked under it, still moving forward, still holding Kylo's sabre, and stabbed the blade down into her foot. She hissed and snarled, went to retreat another step, and managed to stop herself before tearing her foot apart around the burning edge of the sabre. 

Hux rose up out of his crouch, the blade snapping around to a forward grip and he lunged in, point forward, and rammed it through her right shoulder. Phasma screamed, her eyes jerking down to stare at the place the blade met her shoulder. Hux didn't pause however, but yanked the blade back and kicked savagely into Phasma's wounded foot, making her stagger and drop to one knee. Her left hand came up in a wild punch, aiming for his ribs, for the place that 2x4 had cut open days ago. Hux didn't try to dodge or block, and kept moving as though she would never touch him. 

Because Kylo already had his left hand out, already reaching for the power he knew would come if Hux needed it. He caught her, and she froze, her left hand wrenched back and behind her, staggering low, her face turned up to Hux. Hux pressed the crackling line of Kylo's sabre down towards her neck.

All three of them were suddenly still.

"General Phasma," Hux said, breathing hard but sounding perfectly calm. "I will accept your unconditional surrender." 

Kylo carefully held his grip over her. 

"I will negotiate terms," Phasma growled. She didn't move to fight Kylo's hold over herself, and her glare, even glazed with pain, was sharp enough to cut at fifty paces. 

"No, you won't. You have nothing left to threaten us with, no further moves. You can only surrender." 

This was possibly the fattest, most extravagant lie Kylo had ever heard Hux utter. But he spoke it with such straight-backed conviction Kylo believed it for a hot second.

"The army I command can crush you." 

"Your troops are already being rounded up by my teams, taken prisoner and processed," lied Hux with a conviction hard enough to bend iron. 

"I refuse to believe that you're capable of--" Phsama started, then Kylo spoke over her. 

"What is your contingency?" The words registered on his mind only after he'd spoken them. There was still tension between his shoulder blades. There was still something wrong. 

Phasma's eyes darted from Hux to Kylo, and lingered on his scar.

He restrained himself from tucking his face into his hand. He couldn't anyway, his hands were just a jangling mess of pain. He was ready to cut into her mind and drag what she'd done out of her that way. 

"You have a contingency," Hux murmured. "Of course. You were trying to leave the building. Since you failed to kill us outright, you knew that we were at least inside." 

Kylo stepped up to stand beside Hux, looking down as General Phasma with his head a little to one side. "Inside, where you are now. Where we will keep you." 

Hux's hand tightened on Kylo's saber, its blade moving infinitesimally closer to her neck. "I can kill each one of your troops," Hux said softly, "because I have arranged to, and my troops have no reason to stop. However, I have also arranged that the troopers can be taken prisoner, humanely treated, and transported to safe holding pending their trial. You can lose an army today, or just its cause. But either way, you'll die if we do. Tell us what you've done." 

"This building," Phasma said in a low voice, "is on fire." 

Simple yet effective. Set a building on fire and walk inside, it set the timer on getting in and out quickly. It was a good failsafe if she hadn’t managed to kill them. The news barely registered as a shock on Kylo's mind. Phasma liked fire. It was efficient, powerful and clean. 

And this building was the only structure worth any cover for a long, long way, and it was surrounded.

Phasma barely smiled at the expression that must have flickered across Kylo and Hux's faces. "Are you so confident that my troopers will fall back under your command?" 

"You did," Hux replied coolly.

In the frozen silence that followed this, Kylo realized the sounds of the fight had changed. People were screaming close by, voices calling to one another. Somewhere glass shattered and the familiar sound of trooper boots on stone clattered. 

"Inform your troops they may safely surrender," Hux said. "How many of them do you think died in your little distraction?" 

"More than anticipated," Phasma admitted with a snarl. She was damp with sweat, looking waxy from the pain, but she held herself perfectly still under Hux's unflinching scrutiny. 

"What are you anticipating now, Phasma? Admit your defeat and command your forces to surrender."

Phasma glared up at him, then gave a tight, grudging little nod. 

The personnel who had been shooting down into the courtyard had turned and were strugglign to get untangled from each other, and back into the room. They all gave an audible sigh of relief. Kylo looked over at Rose Hilm, who was sitting primly at her crowded work desk, her array of probably hand made apparatus teetering around her. She stared steadily back at them and nodded. 

"Get up." Hux took a careful step back, and Phasma dragged herself upright and very nearly to attention. 

"I can't walk," she said bluntly. She couldn't put weight on her wounded right foot. 

Felicity Cheer stepped away from the group at the window. People were starting to point and cry out; smoke was curling up from the other buildings.

Kylo realized that he hadn't heard Finn or Poe on the comm and they had been quiet for too long. 

"Sir, I volunteer to aid the prisoner," Cheer said resolutely. There was a bruise visible on the side of her neck, darkening to purple, and there was blood on her hands.  

Hux nodded and Phasma unwillingly held out her arm. Felicity stepped under it, and together made their their slow, painful way to Rose Hilm's desk. 

"She moves, you paralyse her," Hux said quietly. 

Kylo nodded. He was riding in Phasma's mind, wary of any sign of her lashing out. 

Hux powered down the sabre, looking at it as the blade withdraw, then held it out to Kylo. Kylo took it in his left hand and tucked it into his coat. 

"Finn and Poe were calling to us earlier though the comm," Hux said quietly, "but they've been quiet." 

Kylo's jaw set.

They both stood in tense silence as Phasma accepted the headset Rose Hilm passed her, and took a breath. 

"All units, all units, direct order from General Phasma." The sound of her voice echoed out from every comm, every speaker, every headset. Phasma took another breath. 

Kylo tightened his grip on the sabre. 

"Stand down. Troopers, TIE fighters, cruisers and all associated craft and personnel of the First Order are to surrender unconditionally to General Hux of the Revivalist Authority. Await processing without offering further resistance." 

Hux walked forward and Rose Hilm passed him a separate headset. She was holding a blaster leveled at Phasma's gut, Kylo noticed, and his mouth opened slightly in perhaps misplaced surprise. It sat on her lap with all the casual killing potential a cardigan-wearing sergeant major could bear, which was alarmingly not as insignificant as Kylo had previously supposed. 

Outside, there was a marked drop off of noise. Trooper boots no longer clattered on the stones of the courtyard, blasters stopped firing. 

"All Revivalist Forces," Hux said into the headset, and his voice rang and echoed around the building, rebounded off the hills.  "The First Order has surrendered. Ceasefire and begin processing prisoners."

The group by the window, shaken and bloody and holding onto one another, gave a heartfelt, breathless cheer. 

Hux and Kylo watched the recently radicalized civilians celebrating their victory for a few seconds, then Hux spoke up.

"The building is still on fire," Hux said, apparently irritated to play nursemaid. "Begin evacuation." 

"Muster Station Elegy," Felicity Cheer called, still bearing most of Phasma's weight over her shoulders. 

Everyone began hurrying along the walls, edging away from the broken glass and blood and the twisted mess of the fallen chandelier. The doors were checked and held open, and people began hurrying out in groups and heading for the stairs. 

"Sir," Doctor Kose Lin presented himself, and passed Hux his comm. "Commanders Dameron and Dameron were both attempting to hail you." He turned to Kylo, and they both looked at his bloody and limp hand. It was starting to go purple. 

"There are droids on the first floor who will be able to treat that without issue," Dr. Lin pulled a folded sheet of shining silver metal from his little white medical bag. Automatically, Kylo presented his arm to the doctor, who wrapped the metal fabric around his swelling wrist. He played a light over the shining fabric and Kylo gasped as it flashed hot, and tightened abruptly into a stiff, thin, clinging cast. "For now that will prevent it from getting worse." 

"Kylo," Hux was looking back at him, com held loosely at his chest. He looked wrecked, pale and exhausted and bloody. "I can't raise Poe or Finn. No one has heard from either of them." 

Kylo, his right hand curled to his chest, reached out blindly and caught Hux's empty hand.

They both blinked down at their hands. But Kylo didn't flinch away this time.

"We'll find them," Kylo said quietly. 

Hux returned his grip. 

"Shouldn't we leave?" Toni Bow stopped before them, bewildered and pale, looking from one to the other, her arms full of charts. There was a hideous gash down both her arms, and her clothes were ripped and bloody.  

The room was already almost empty, the last few officers hastilly gathering data pads or flimsies.

Hux tightened his hand on Kylo's and turned to leave. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: July 7 2017 - Revised for your health and enjoyment.

The building burned with the sluggish resentment of a structure designed and built by a people who believed in fire retardant materials and stone work, but it was burning. Kylo stuck to Hux, and the two of them made their way out. The Revivalists were wonderfully practical when it came to fire it seemed, namely when there was a fire in the building, they simply took the building away from it. An entire wall was missing, and through it, people, furniture, processors and crates of data pads were being ferried into the cool night air under their own power or by droids. 

It impressed Kylo that Hux was already dealing with this situation. Dealing with several thousand prisoners and Revivalist survivors. Attempting to contact the Resistance. Hux calling people over and issuing brief pointed, direct orders and sending them on their way. 

Toni Bow had been reunited with her team of surveyors, and they were directed to accrue all their gear for treks around the planet. Dr. Kose Lin was ordered to organize the fleet of medical droids into creating a field hospital. Sergeant Major Rose Hilm, sitting in the medical area, was already following the orders Hux had been about to issue her. She was receiving pieces of her comm array one piece at a time from a team of droids she was sending into the sluggishly burning building and making her command centre out on the blasted gounds. Marblehead came over the comm with his brother to accept orders to allow the Troops to board the battle cruiser hovering in orbit above them. They took an injudicious amount of explosives with them and the caveat that if the First Order attempted to disembark, or took aggressive action, they would shortly be terminally dealt with. Felicity Cheer was given the task of keeping Phasma imprisoned, and accounting for the surrendered First Order weaponry. Upon receiving this order, she stared flatly back at Hux, then turned around and requisitioned about a hundred personnel to start with.

Kylo barely paid attention to all of this. Recruits and Military people were running power from emergency backup power cells, from the fighters, from inside the burning town hall. Lights were being set up, construction lanterns hung one after another on long cords, floodlights set up, the fighters burning their running lights idly into the darkness. A few people were starting fires, apparently agreeing wholeheartedly with Phasma's policies. Above them, Chitoo Boh's twin moons were away overhead, and the stars beyond that shone down. 

It was cool, and quiet, and the dew was falling. 

He had his wrist seen to briefly by one busy medical droid, and caught sight of Phasma sitting under the strict gaze of Felicity Cheer, with Rose Hilm beside her. Dr. Lin was looking at her shoulder with a medical droid fussing by her foot. She looked composed, though slightly lost, and Rose Hilm was patting her hand in a motherly manner which Phasma looked slightly disapproving of, but wasn't stopping her either. 

"The Resistance is going to love what you got them for a expansion gift," Kylo remarked, looking over the unhelmeted heads of rows upon rows of troopers lined up and sitting glumly in the darkness. A few people with clipboards were moving through and around them, taking serial numbers and retinal scans, logging them as prisoners, guarded by Revivalists in uniform with blasters ready. Once the troopers were logged, they were being summarily dropped into medical comas by trailing medical droids as a precaution against an uprising.

"I'm sure General Organa will love it," Hux agreed.

As the looked out over the sea of Troopers, another battalion of forty or so walked out of the woods with their hands on their heads shepherded by three Revivalist guards. 

They left Hux's officers working busily away under the hum of a mishmash of lights and, went looking for Poe. The muddy field that had been crowded with fighters when they'd arrived was almost empty now, and Kylo felt his gut tighten when he looked around  and realized that there wasn't a single A-wing lined up with the surviving craft. 

A few pilots were working over their fighters, some sitting on crates looking dazed, medical droids fussing around them. Their astrotech droids were shining lights wherever their pilots were working.

"Where's Commander Dameron?" Hux snapped as he approached a pilot. 

The woman, exhausted and rumpled but standing, turned, saw Hux then snapped her gaze to Kylo. 

"Fuck," She said slowly with considerable feeling. 

Against all probability, Kylo's spirits lifted considerably. "You," he reached out and found the same familiar mind. The pilot who'd been part of the team to ferry Kylo on his medical ship to Snoke. Who’d drawn the short straw, then helped him escape the battle cruiser before stealing the medical transport and booking it with her fellows. So that explained where the Revivalist had gotten some of their competent pilots. Poe had mentioned deserters, and Kylo had watched this woman make a run for it himself.

"Good, you know each other," Hux rode directly over the joyous reunion. "Where's your commander." 

"Don't you do it," She snapped at Kylo almost before Hux had finished speaking, holding up one finger. "Don't you. Ask. Just ask. Like him." 

Kylo, who had in fact been about to shove the mental image of Poe into the pilot's mind stopped himself, drew back a fraction and almost grinned. 

She glared at him, finger raised, apparently waiting to see if he would break and try and shove his beastly abilities to her. Then apparently satisfied he wouldn't, turned and pointed out and up over the roof of the Town Hall. 

"He's flying sweeps over where the town was, looking for the other Commander Dameron. And they say we're missing a couple hundred of the people who were with him. Looks like they were all killed." 

The three of them looked over the roof of the town hall, Kylo was just able to hear the thump and whine of an A-wing underway, flying in switchbacks.  

A pall of smoke and ash was climbing sluggishly from the building. The two side wings were burning with the low, hot, resentful dedication of a fire that isn't really satisfied with what it's got to work with, but no one was really giving it any trouble either so it carried on. Kylo and Hux picked their way around it, and looked out at the scorched and blasted landscape of the ruined town.

The bone-white bodies showed up grimly in the darkness. A few Revivalists were picking their way through the battlefield with flashlights and medical droids, occasionally with one or two disarmed and unhelmeted Troopers. It stank like crude explosives, burnt flesh, and fresh turned earth. All the way into the courtyard bodies were scattered, and back to the hillside where the transport ships were taking the Troopers back up to the battle cruisers for safe keeping. Kylo could just make out two Revivalists in uniform under the lights of a Trooper transport positioned at the drop off site, a few people in plain clothes around them. 

Above them, a little A-wing zoomed over their heads, dipped in acknowledgement, and flew anxiously away again, switching low over the battlefield. 

Finn could be anywhere in this. And his couple hundred recruits. The people who had armed a trebuchet intended for repelling wildlife and brought down fighters, transports and possibly hundreds of troopers.

"Well?" Hux glanced up at Kylo. 

He closed his eyes. Lightning in a bottle. 

He cast out and out and out for it. Hux beside him, Poe flying in and out of his ability to sense him. The dying troopers and Revivalists showing as sluggish bruise coloured points of pain and confusion. The survivors walking over their field with mingled horror and pity and righteous satisfaction. The surviving troopers moving among their dead fellows with flat, dejected despair. 

Finn, Kylo thought in the darkness, lightning in a bottle. Poe over head, sick with anxiety. Finn had been on the field when the Troopers had begun coming down the hillside in droves. The hardiest former Trooper Kylo had ever heard of.

Lightning in a bottle. Finn had found a buried grain silo that could have withstood a dedicated assault by this planet's freakish wildlife. He'd worked on it because he cared about what happened to those people under his command. He’d been excited about it and Kylo hadn’t understood what he’d seen in it. A bunker. Kylo felt himself turn, and opened his eyes.

“There,” he said. 

Hux requisitioned two of the wandering teams looking for survivors, and together, they walked with them over the burnt and blasted remains of the town to a blocked hatch on the ground. They cleared the hatch, pulling rocks and dirt and about four dead bodies away, and, shrugging at each other, Kylo and Hux both knocked politely. 

Then Finn climbed out of the black hole in the ground at the head of nearly two hundred civilian recruits, whole and hurting but alive. 

Poe made what was probably his least graceful landing since his childhood, dropped out of his cockpit without sparing a glance around him in the dark of the slaughter, and ran headlong at Finn. Finn nearly fell face first in his effort to get to Poe, and in the end, the two hit each other at speed, wrapped their arms around one another, buried their faces in each others necks, and that seemed to be all that could have held them upright. 

"We'll get Rose Hilm to hail the Resistance," Hux murmured thoughtfully, gazing around the ruined battlefield. "They're far better equipped to mop up this sorry mess." 

"Hope so, I'm not doing it," Kylo replied. 

They were watched Finn and Poe cling to one another. Finn had his hands in Poe's hair, Poe's hands on Finn's hips, their foreheads together, eyes closed in the dark, talking fast and quiet to one another. 

They would go home in the morning. The thought struck Kylo and nearly winded him. They'd go home together, to the Resistance base, or wherever they were posted, they'd be together. 

Kylo cradled his metal bound wrist and tried not to think about how alien that idea felt. How lonely he must be in comparison. How incredibly indecently he seemed to fit anywhere he mentally placed himself. 

Around them, the Troopers and Revivalists broke into their teams again, looking for more survivors, aided by the recruits who had been saved by Finn. 

"Come on," Hux said. "They'll be alright." 

Together, they picked their way over the remains of the city, over the dead, and away to the empty, trampled gardens to where Seafarer sat untouched and ugly and the most welcome sight Kylo could ever remember. The fire was burning out in the town hall. The huge open wall on the top most room, their command center, was a wide gaping maw of lazy smoke and fire. No one seemed concerned that the last building standing on this quarter of the planet was slowly burning down. Troopers sat propped up on each other, waiting for their transports, yawning and murmuring quietly. Tents had been erected with admirable presence of mind by Toni Bow and her entire team of Surveyors, and medical droids were trilling and beeping at one another. 

It felt weirdly dreamlike to Kylo, who followed Hux obediently up the ramp and blinked at 2x4, who chattered to him reprovingly, said something about shock and overtaxation. Kylo sat quietly in the medical wing with Hux leaning against the table beside him. 2x4 cut the metal sheet off Kylo's wrist and the pain he'd reached a wary equilibrium with suddenly became savagely uncontrollable. His wrist started it, but suddenly, his side felt as fresh as it had lying in the snow on Starkiller. His face felt like it had been torn open anew.

He choked on a scream as 2x4 began work on his wrist, and realized with a shock that Hux was suddenly beside him, they sat side by side on the table, with Kylo's good left hand held in both of Hux's. 

He kept realizing that,as 2x4 cut open his wrist, wired the bones together and made him whole again. Hux was beside him, stayed with him. The thought held him conscious as 2x4 wrapped his wrist in another sheet of metal cast material. He kept coming back to it as 2x4 cleaned and stitched the burns on his face and hand. 

"My side," Kylo gasped as 2x4 finished the last stitch. 

"The injury to your side has received trauma from a single blow by a fist. There is no need to treat it further, it will heal in time." 2x4 said soothingly, withdrawing the equipment he'd been using out of Kylo. 

Kylo blinked at it. The agony in his side was making him keenly aware that his shoulder had been torn open again. He could feel blood making his clothes sticky and heavy, stick to his skin. 

"You're alright," Hux murmured. 

"Hurts," Kylo said, shutting his eyes. It was making him light headed.

"I am authorized to offer a tranquilizer to aid our rest, would you like to accept?" 2x4 chirped. 

"No," Said Kylo automatically. He shook his head slightly. His side hurt. His shoulder hurt. 

Hux stood, and Kylo followed him. 

"Take my bunk," Hux said, and gently bullied Kylo towards it. "You and your worthless wrist won't make the ascent to yours." Hux stepped up onto the edge of his bunk, half climbing into Kylo's. 

"Such generosity," Kylo tested his right wrist. It hurt, but it held, and he could move his fingers. He dropped down to sit in Hux's bunk and stared blankly at the opposite wall. "Tomorrow," he said with considerable feeling, "Is going to be terrible." 

Hux snorted, and a star chart abruptly filled the room with slowly turning, softly glowing lights. He climbed carefully down, and sat on the edge of his bunk beside Kylo. "Say that again." 

"Terrible?" Kylo looked out at the stars.

"Tomorrow." 

That shut Kylo up neatly. Tomorrow. They had a tomorrow. 

Kylo let out a long breath, and trailed his fingers over the shiny metal cast 2x4 had given him. It would heal. It would have time to heal. The scar in Hux's eyebrow and his broken rib and the collar of bright red scars would fade. Their scars and the aches and pains of their bodies would dwindle to nothing. 

"I really thought I would die. I wanted to, at first," Hux said quietly. "Better a last stand than anonymously in space. If you hadn't been there I would have died." 

"I told you so," Kylo couldn't help but insisting. 

"You were right, I just said as much," if Hux wasn't rolling his eyes he certainly sounded like he was. 

"You didn't die though," Kylo pointed out helpfully. "I thought I lost this star chart." He added, realizing it was his missing one. The one of Starkiller's system. 

"I stole it," said the man formerly in command of the largest militarized force in recorded history. "It's mine now. And no, very observant. I didn't die."

Hux paused, choosing his words, and Kylo suddenly felt his breath catch. He was suddenly, keenly, unavoidably aware that Hux was sitting very, very close to him. 

"I realized dying gloriously wasn't going to be worth the chance to live, not just for my own sake," Hux paused, and turned his right hand up on his knee, offering it up to Kylo. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you. I thought I was imagining things, and then, thought I was going to die, and the last thing that would happen to me was making a mistake about what you actually thought of me. Even though you told me, I thought I was mistaken, that it couldn't be real. That just because I wanted it to be real, it couldn't be.” 

Kylo kept very quiet, and slipped his good hand into Hux’s.

"I've been drawn to you," Hux went on with slow determination, "For long enough I thought it wouldn't matter. Long enough that I thought I could work around it. Gotten used to how much I thought of you, wondered about you, fought with you and competed with you and resented you because you couldn't ever see me as anything but what my role was." 

"I always saw you," Kylo said. He brushed his thumb over the inside of Hux’s wrist, their hands tightened around one another. "Not just the obnoxious general that kept one upping my attempts to impress Snoke." 

"Couldn't believe that," Hux shook his head. "I couldn't..." 

They were both looking out at the stars slowing turning around them, at Starkillers dead sun shining out from this outdated chart. Hux reached up and slid his hand under Kylo's jaw, gently turning him so they were face to face. 

"You got wrecked," He said matter of factly, studying Kylo's new cuts and burns, "In your fight with Phasma." 

Kylo snorted, "It'll heal." He hesitated then went on, "You like scars right?" 

"You've got me there," Hux agreed. 

Hux tugged Kylo in gently, mindful of the fresh cuts and stitches, and Kylo lent into Hux with a sigh. 

The kiss was soft, and careful, and so tentative that Kylo ached. Hux's tongue licked gently over the split in his lip, and Kylo’s breath caught. He pulled his hand out of Hux's, and finally, finally threaded it through Hux's hair, spread his hand over the back of Hux's head and pulled him closer. 

Kylo felt Hux smiled against his mouth briefly. Felt Hux's kiss the spit in his lip and suck slightly, making Kylo hiss a breath in. He tipped his chin up and caught Hux's lips in his, kissed him hard and tugged him down, lying back so they could lie along the length of Hux's bunk. 

"You're hurt," Hux said, starting slightly and breaking the kiss, suddenly tentative again, hands hovering over Kylo without touching. 

"We both are. We'll heal, Hux," Kylo stroked his hand through Hux's hair, made a gentle fist and tugged down, "Please." 

"Please? We're plumbing the depths of your vocabulary today I see," Hux muttered, but ducked his head and kissed the corner of Kylo's grinning mouth. 

"For you, sure," Kylo whispered. He tugged Hux down to him, relishing the scuff of the red beard, the fine hair he could feel falling against his. Hux's mouth was on his, the gentle warm press of his tongue, and the wet slide as Kylo opened for him. 

They were both hurt, both healing, and it made them slow, made them careful. Kylo's hands were light on Hux's back, feeling the edges of the new scars under Hux's coat. Made Hux pull Kylo's clothes open with infinite care, tortuously slowly, taking his time and watching Kylo squirm under him. 

"I have a broken wrist," Kylo groaned after several agonizing minutes. "You have to get buttons open faster because I can't." 

"Shhh," Hux whispered against the skin of Kylo's chest. He was kneeling over Kylo's hips, hands busy with the various layers Kylo had piled on, peeling open one layer at a time, pulling his shirt open slowly. He kissed each new stretch of skin as it was bared, "I'm enjoying myself." 

Kylo gazed up muzzily at the stars going by, his left hand stroking through Hux's hair, shuddering at intervals and focusing on the gentle rasp of Hux's beard on his skin, the hot kisses sucked into his stomach. Hux pulled open another section of shirt and sucked a soft open mouthed kiss into the skin below Kylo's navel. Kylo let out a long open mouth breath, and his eyes fell shut. 

"Hux," Kylo gasped, his body tensing and then relaxing in abrupt realization that this was ok, more than ok. This was Hux palming the length of his dick through his pants and nuzzling his stomach and pressing kisses into his side and running his hand slowly down over Kylo's chest. 

Kylo realized that he was trembling with the effort of holding himself back, and hold himself still. More than once, he'd felt a wave of power warm and rising around them, he'd felt Hux's hair lifting. 

"You realize," Kylo said with slight desperation, "That you're letting me win this." 

"Yeah?" Hux muttered absently, his hands busy with the front of Kylo's pants, his eyes shut and lashes ticking occasionally against Kylo's stomach. 

Kylo stroked a hand through Hux's hair, hard and fast without pushing him, moving him too much. "I have far, far more skin showing." 

Hux snorted, and sat up, catching Kylo's eye and grinning slightly. He sat back, straddling Kylo's thighs and tugged his coat open, peeled it off and cast it aside. Pulled his shirt over his head, then suddenly tensed, ducked his head at the last second and didn't toss his shirt aside, suddenly remembering. 

"Hux," Kylo said softly. He touched Hux's side very gently, below the neat, even railroad of stitches 2x4 had left over Hux's broken rib. "You're alive. The cuts are healing, that proves it." 

Hux seemed to relax over Kylo, and he let his shirt drop to one side. Kylo took a quick, hot little breath. There were freckles on his shoulders and the tops of his hips. A dark red trail of hair that traced from his navel down under the band of his pants. The scars were healing, the marks that had been carved into him would fade. Kylo put his hand flat on Hux's chest, over his heart, and could feel the fast, steady pulse on his palm. 

"More even race now?" Hux said softly. He looked down at Kylo through his hair, with an errant stars slowly twirling between them, making their bodies glow in the low light. 

Kylo nodded dumbly, his hand trailing up to Hux's neck, over the little bites the collar had left, and cupped the back of his neck. "You're winning." 

"In every way," Hux murmured with a touch of his old arrogance. Kylo snorted and tugged him down, sitting up slightly to meet him, hungry for a kiss. 

It was slow, and messy and open mouthed, hot breath and wet lips and Hux's elbows propped on either side of Kylo's head, content to sit crouched over him, chest to chest with their mouths together indefinitely. 

Kylo's left hands gently traced the lines of muscle and bone over Hux's sides and back and chest, memorizing the proportions, mapping the freckled skin out with his eyes shut. Every piece of him was suddenly, wholly new and wonderful and open to him.

Hux leaned back slightly, dazed and blinking, and Kylo leaned up after him, chasing another kiss. 

"We're not stopping this," He said with absolute certainty that only very drunk, or very, very determined people can manage. 

"No," Agreed Kylo automatically, his left hand was rubbing filthy and slow over the hard ridge in Hux's pants. 

"We're not stopping this," Hux insisted again. He shut his eyes and swallowed, bit his lip, and Kylo watched Hux's lip slide wet and red from between his teeth. 

"Hux," Kylo groaned, shutting his eyes briefly, and almost made the mistake of using his useless, broken hand for the delicate task of undoing the pants containing a desperate hard on. "Hux you have me, alright? I don't need orders of convincing, I'm here for this."

He flipped the button on Hux's pants open one handed, pushed his smallclothes down, and bit off another groan as Hux's dick suddenly fell hot and heavy against Kylo's palm. He wrapped his fingers around the length and tugged, slowly, and gently, and panted, open mouthed and grinning as Hux shuddered and arched above him. 

"Still can't believe that," Hux shook his head briefly. His hair brushed back and forth over Kylo's forehead. "Can't believe I have you." 

"Always did," Kylo murmured, running his thumb over the swollen crown of Hux's dick and watching the expressions flick over his face, "Idiot." 

Hux laughed breathlessly, and blinked his eyes open, looking down at Kylo. "You never saw this? Never read this in my mind?" 

Kylo shook his head, he couldn't break Hux's gaze, the bright, intense focus was on him now, and Kylo felt like he was sunning himself in it. "What would I have seen?" 

Hux bared his teeth in a grin suddenly, and he dropped his head down beside Kylo's, lips next to Kylo's ear. "Fucking in the war room," Hux gasped. "On my back on the war table with my legs around you, you fucking me with your hands under my shoulders, pulling me into you." 

Kylo hissed a string of trailing expletives, his pace slackening as his coordination stumbled while his attention was focused elsewhere. 

"Wanted to ride you," Hux went on relentlessly, his lips tracing Kylo's ear, "Wanted you with your hands above your head holding on to something solid while I wrecked myself on your dick. It wouldn't have taken long, it would have been almost like this." 

Both of Hux's hands rubbed down the length of Kylo's dick through his pants, and they both moaned. 

"I wanted you on your back with your hands behind your knees, holding yourself open for me, lying back with my hands in your hair while I fucked you." Hux was grinning while he spoke, his hands busy parting the front of Kylo's pants. He wrapped both hands around Kylo's dick and held it very gently. "Thought about you panting and moaning, kneeling between my thighs, with my gloved hands on the back of your neck and my dick in your mouth." 

Kylo whined and his cock jerked against the cage of  Hux's hands. His left hand was at Hux's hip now, holding on. He was panting open mouthed. 

"Wanted you like this," Hux said softly. He stroked Kylo with a steady, slow tightness that was driving Kylo spare. He could feel heat lifting in arcs around them, his power making Hux's hair lift and the stars turning gently around them shine brighter by increments. "Wanted you where I could touch you, stroke you, kiss your skin and trace your scars and watch you coming apart because you wanted me." 

"Look if this is a checklist," Kylo gasped, "I'm committed to it." He was digging bruises into Hux's hips, he couldn't stop himself. His thighs were shaking and he could feel the air crackling and sparking around them. When he opened his eyes the stars and planets of the star chart were radiantly bright. 

Hux huffed a laugh into Kylo's neck. "We've got time," He murmured. 

Kylo let out a shaking breath and turned his head, chasing another Hux's mouth. Hux turned his face to meet him and the kiss was hot and messy and breathless and desperate. Kylo managed to slip his hand around Hux's length again and stroked. It was a amazing to him that an hour ago, he didn't have this privilege. Didn't get to touch Hux or listen to him panting and whining, didn't know what his mouth really tasted like. 

"What about you?" Hus gasped, he was shuddering, barely breaking the kiss to ask. "What did you think of when you wanted me for so long?" 

Kylo shuddered, a torrent of half formed thoughts and questions and images and dreams went through him, pushed him right to the edge of his endurance. "Honestly Hux I'll just show you." 

Hux barked out a surprised little laugh, then started, uttering a little whine as he came over Kylo's fingers. He ducked his head and kissed the side of Kylo's neck, under his jaw, teeth grazing at the skin. Kylo gasped, bit his lip and came, his legs trembling, his mind washing blank and the stars on their serene orbit blazed brighter and brighter until Kylo could see the edges of the light behind his eyelids. 

Hux lay over Kylo's chest, their hands a sticky mess between them, while they caught their breath, and their sweat cooled. Kylo nuzzled Hux's cheek, and Hux pressed a lazy kiss into Kylo's neck again. 

The outside world began shuffling back into Kylo's thoughts. Thousands of Stormtroopers to detain and deport. Battle cruisers to deal with. Phasma was injured but still so, so powerful. The Revivalists to disband and break up, the recruits to assign to more beneficial lines of work. Resistance to contact. Snoke had lost all three of his command trifecta but that didn't mean he didn't have other options. Kylo's mother was out there, she wanted him back. 

Hux sighed above him, and Kylo could feel him smiling against his neck. 

Kylo wrapped his good arm around Hux's shoulders and held onto him. The rest could wait. Hux was here, whole and alive and against all the odds, pressing sleepy, beardy little kisses into Kylo's shoulder. They were still together, they were still alive. 

And they would run. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for staying with me through this, I hope you enjoyed it. This is the first long fic I've ever written, and honestly a year and a half after having posted it, I'm editing it and I've learned so much, and wish I could rewrite it now. I had a lot of fun writing this, and found I still liked it as I reread and edited it (though the hideous unedited version that went up will forever be my shame, forgive me).  
> This was beta read by the amazing and long suffering Windlion, who was with me through the entire process of this being written. Art was by the incredibly patient and hard working [Assasyngal on Tumblr!](http://assasyngal.tumblr.com/post/145587927734/run-once-more-in-the-wake-of-the-republics) Who picked my story summary and stuck with me. Thank you. <3  
> I have a [Tumblr](http://leoandlancer.tumblr.com), and I would love to hear from you if you'd like to stop by! Thank you for reading all the way to the end, I love you.


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